By John Lunn, CEO & Founder of Gr4vy
| For years, loyalty has been the golden metric in customer retention. Brands invested heavily in rewards programs, point systems, subscription models, and gamified experiences, all in the name of encouraging repeat business. But what if that’s no longer what really matters? What if we’ve been measuring the wrong thing? What if loyalty today isn’t about incentives at all, but about flexibility? Now, loyalty is defined less by how much a customer returns and more by how easily they could leave and choose not to. At the center of that shift is a growing expectation: make things easy, adaptable, and on the customer’s terms. Nowhere is that more visible than at the point of payment. Why Flexibility Beats Incentives Consumers aren’t loyal to brands in the traditional sense anymore. Their loyalty now lies in ease, relevance, and being understood. And few things reveal how well a brand understands its customer more clearly than the payment experience. Modern consumers expect payment to fit their context, whatever method, channel, or timing suits them in the moment. If your checkout doesn’t offer their preferred payment method, they’re likely to abandon the transaction, often permanently. Expectations vary by market, but the principle stays the same. Whether it’s Klarna in Germany, Pix in Brazil, GCash in the Philippines, or Apple Pay in the U.S., the message is universal: make it easy, or I’ll go elsewhere. This is not just a generational shift; it’s a behavioral one. Younger consumers, especially digital natives, aren’t loyal to specific card issuers or banks. Rather, they prioritize speed, control, and relevance in how they manage and spend their money. That’s reflected in the rise of Buy Now, Pay Later, with adoption at 41% among 16–24-year-olds and 39% among those aged 25–34—compared to just 12% for 55–64-year-olds and 11% for those over 65. So, if your payment stack doesn’t meet these expectations, you’re not just creating friction. You’re being left out of the decision entirely. Too often, brands focus on the top of the funnel: acquisition, awareness, and engagement. However, payment is the final interaction, and it’s where trust is either reinforced or broken. And when it fails, the consequences can be significant. What once seemed like a small oversight—missing a local payment method—now signals that you don’t understand your customer. Turning Payments into a Loyalty Driver In these moments, the checkout becomes more than a transaction. Rather than being just another step, it becomes a defining moment that shapes how customers experience your brand. You can have the most customer-focused messaging in the world, but if your payment experience doesn’t reflect that same care, it won’t matter. While traditional loyalty programs were built around repeat behavior, in a mobile-first, app-driven world, customer journeys don’t follow a straight line. Retention today is about alignment and responsiveness, not incentives. That’s where payment flexibility comes in. Letting customers pay with their preferred method shows respect. Letting them split a payment or save credentials shows you understand how they live and buy. Making checkout fast and simple shows you value their time. Rather than being seen as just functional features, these are signals that your brand is willing to meet people where they are. That being said, when payments fail or feel rigid, customers leave, and they often don’t come back. Ultimately, this is not just about perception alone; it’s lost revenue. Solving it means treating checkout as dynamic. That means adapting to context in real time, whether that’s showing the right payment methods based on location and device, recovering failed transactions through smart retries, or routing payments efficiently to increase approval rates and reduce costs. Just as marketing has evolved to be more data-driven and personal, payments need to follow. The ability to tailor how, where, and when someone pays reflects a brand’s investment in understanding its customers. It shifts the interaction from a transaction to a conversation. This is what defines modern loyalty: not being tied to a rewards program but choosing to return because the experience simply works. Why Loyalty Comes Down to Checkout The definition of loyalty is changing. It’s no longer about stickiness or inertia but rather about choice and relevance. In the end, the real differentiator will be removing friction and offering flexibility. That means treating payments not as a back-office task, but as a core part of the customer relationship. The key question has shifted from “How do we get customers to stay?” to “How do we give them fewer reasons to leave?” In a world full of alternatives, retention comes down to making it easy for people to come back. And that starts with the payment experience. |
