The first phase of the consumption vouchers has started to be delivered since 1st August, have you received yours? Electronic payment platforms have been developed and used in Hong Kong for many years. They were promoted by different advertisements and special offers to attract a wide base of users. This time, the government made it compulsory to claim the $5000 vouchers via electronic wallet. The reason behind this is obvious: encourage citizens to consume via mobile payment, and encourage shop owners to install e-payment systems into their POS systems, so as to develop Hong Kong as a cashless society.
E-payment platforms rely on the transaction fees paid by the users, the more users using the platform, the more money can be earned by the platform. Therefore, these e-payment platforms will do anything to remain the activeness of their users. Just like other industries, an e-payment platform is a kind of service that needs to be promoted, active users of these mobile wallets are just like loyal customers toward a brand. Therefore, if they want to maintain and increase their customer return rate, different strategies are needed to enhance their loyalty. Let’s take a look at the strategies carried out by the e-payment platforms.
“AARRR” : From New Users to Loyal Users
Source: https://growthrocks.com/blog/aarrr-framework/
Acquisition:
Attracting customers to use/buy for the first time
Promotion
E-payment platforms promote themselves through advertisements, attracting users to register their services through newsjacking different trends. Take Octopus and Tap and Go as examples, they both invited members of Mirror, the most discussed and popular boy band in Hong Kong, to be the endorsers, so as to attract their fans to choose their service. Celebrity branding is a clever strategy to make great use of the influence and fame of idols, grab the eyes of their fans, and deliver certain messages and information to potential customers.
Activation:
Provide a good using/shopping experience to retain customers
Good User Experience
To make your customers stay, it is important to provide them with a user-friendly, smoothly operating e-payment platform with various functions. If we want to make an application interface user-friendly, we have to consider the UX design and the UI design. UX design includes the fluency of the application, the consistency of different conversions, and so on. For the UI design, the consistency of the design theme and layout should be taken into account.
User experience design is especially important, it is the deciding factor of whether the users will enjoy using the application. Of course, as an e-payment platform, the versatility of functions is important, but what’s more important is the responding speed and the convenience of the application. Tap & Go gained a huge amount of users thanks to the consumption voucher scheme. However, due to the negligence of the technical support, a lot of Tap & Go users cannot spend their vouchers normally. Within the first week, the majority of users reflected that they have been excessively charged or rejected when they are trying to use the vouchers, regardless of online or offline shopping. One unpleasant experience is enough to ruin the trust of your customers, they might shift to your competitors ever since.
Retention:
Make your customers stay
Regular Incentive
When the e-payment platforms were newly introduced, welcoming offers attracted different customers to use them. Yet, these are only short-term incentives. A lot of users returned to using cash or credit cards after the offers ended, long-term profit cannot be generated to these platforms. Therefore, regular incentives are needed to motivate users to keep using the e-wallets.
Just like Alipay HK, Alipay HK adapted the earn and burn concept in the loyalty program, and launched a stamp collecting function. Users may redeem stamps via a regular transaction with Alipay, then they may claim different digital vouchers with 3 stamps. Hence, the journey of collecting stamps and rewards will motivate users to keep paying with Alipay HK, as well as increasing the customer retention rate.
Referral:
Recommendation is the best kind of promotion
Develop the ecosystem of e-payment by enhancing user networks and P2P (Person-to-person) transferring networks.
- User Networks: Motivating users to recommend their friends and families by giving rewards. With the snowball effect, the existing customers will refer the platform to the new customers, the new customers will then refer to other new customers based on their networks. Building a strong, wide user network may emerge the e-payment platform into the users’ lives. Take Paypal as an example, Paypal will reward the referee and referrer with a $40 voucher respectively, so as to encourage existing users to refer Paypal to the people around them.
- P2P Transferral Network: Providing convenient transferring service among users may enhance their loyalty, as well as to enlarge the market penetration rate. Transferring function is the main reason why a lot of people are starting to download payment applications like Payme or WeChat Pay, the function also allows payment platforms to further broaden the customer base to the social network of the existing customers.
Revenue:
Enjoying the result of marketing
The increase in marketing cost is inevitable, but what your company can earn from it is long-lasting. Apart from using their resources, enterprises may invite different brands from different industries for collaborations, and enjoy the benefits of economies of scale. Collaborations may even provide your customers with more offer types, increase their willingness to keep using your service, as well their loyalty toward your company. Alipay is one of the good examples of retaining customers with various voucher options.
Collaboration with brands helps uplift your competitiveness, lowering your promotion costs, earning more revenue, and providing your customers with all-rounded service. Once the loyalty of your customers increases, long-term profits will be generated.
Of course, the above are only some simple suggestions and examples. The real situation depends on the needs, philosophy, and style of your company, but there is no harm to wait and see how these e-payment platforms will keep up the activeness of their customers, expand their customers’ networks, and help achieve the development of a cashless society.
To learn more about the “AARRR” structure, feel free to click here, visiting our previous insight.