Most service businesses invest heavily in what they deliver and almost nothing in how delivery reaches the customer. Meanwhile, the process behind every customer interaction from payment to digital access determines whether quality is experienced or squandered. It does not require extraordinary resources. It requires deliberate design. This article examines the final, most decisive layer of service execution: the operational choices that separate businesses where customers return to from those they quietly abandon.
Payment process
There is a paradox in how most service organisations think about payment. Like every variable in the customer journey, the payment step must be from the customer’s perspective. The most significant moment in the transaction is when customers transfer value in exchange for what they received or are about to receive. However, in many service businesses, the payment process is the most neglected and most friction-laden. I have been to restaurants where making payment was a herculean task. Although an excellent meal was provided, the payment process was discouraging. There are some restaurants whose POS terminals were either not working or unavailable.
In the Nigerian market, the rapid adoption of POS terminals and mobile transfer options by restaurants, retail outlets, and service providers over the last decade is a direct response to the customer experience cost of cash-only payment processes. Every operator who integrated multiple payment options reduced friction at the final step of the customer journey and retained customers who would otherwise have been frustrated by a process that did not accommodate the way they preferred to pay.
