SMS Pay Links are becoming progressively popular as an alternate mode of payment. Payment via SMS pay link offers potential growth for several businesses. Restaurants, salons, or any business having regular customers could benefit much from this payment mode. SMS payments enable businesses to expand their customer reach immensely, as everyone today has a mobile phone.
What is an SMS Pay Link?
SMS Pay Links are a mode of accepting payments from a customer by sending them a text message. The merchant can directly share the payment link to the customer’s mobile phone or share it from the delivery agent’s app. Using an SMS pay link, the customer can then make the payment.
How Does SMS Pay Link Work?
When it comes to the nitty-gritty of how SMS Pay Link payments work, it’s simple. There might be small variations with the company offering the SMS Pay link payment services. You can expect the below elements when it comes to SMS Pay Link:
- Merchant shares an automated Link on the customer’s mobile number via SMS.
- The customer clicks the link in the SMS and initiates the payment
- The customer selects the payment method viz. debit/credit cards, UPI, etc., and completes the payment using his credentials.
- After the successful payment, the customer receives the confirmation message.
As mentioned before, the exact process could vary depending on the company, but you could expect a similar process for completing the sale.
Advantages of SMS Link Payment
For the customer:
- It’s fast as well as easy to use.
- The customer doesn’t need to login into any payment sites and hence remember usernames and passwords.
- It’s secured, as no personal details or account details of the customer are released during payment.
For the business:
- It’s very easy to use and often involves no setup costs. Fast payments make business more efficient and ensure better customer satisfaction, particularly when customers wait to make their payments.
- The SMS Pay Link payments reduce the losses from fraudulent credit card payments and counterfeit cash.
- The merchant doesn’t require any POS hardware with this payment method.
- Adopting remote payments makes it easier for merchants to accept payments from anywhere and at any time. It helps businesses in collecting outstanding payments without any hindrances. Merchants can remind their customers of the amount due to them by sending an SMS and the payment link.
- Not offering the option to pay on delivery can lead to the loss of customers who prefer to pay on delivery. This could subsequently impact overall sales. Offering SMS payments enables businesses to target customers preferring to pay on delivery as well.
Being able to accept payments by SMS offers a lot of potential for businesses. By digitising the payment requests to customers, businesses can reduce the operational costs and reduce their invoices settlement period. Features of SMS pay links vary from company to company, and hence it’s advisable to compare the service packages offered by several companies before finalising on a service provider.