No matter what type of business you’re in, one thing’s for sure — competition has made it better. Competition forces us to constantly innovate and evolve — which our customers demand. If we don’t welcome competition, we’ll be disrupted, if not destroyed by it. Just ask cab companies in the new era of Uber and Lyft, or hotels and the rental housing market with the advent of Airbnb.
When I first started Segpay 15 years ago, there were a lot of established players in payment processing, but only one was offering solution services to businesses in the EU — as an underdog, we used that to our advantage and now, we're excited to be integrating new payment solutions and acquiring options, bringing fresh competition to the marketplace.
Having a true understanding of your clients’ pain points and what is disrupting their business is critical in a competitive marketplace.
Today by having multiple payment processors in the adult space, it allows webmasters to have options to choose from and decide which performs best. Competition in our industry has forced all payment processors to provide innovative solutions, backed by solid customer service — which has led to lower fees, better conversion rates and enhanced fraud mitigation tools.
How can you improve your competitive edge? We’ve gathered the top four ways to win when competition thrives.
Innovation
Innovation is really important in business; it is the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value a customer will pay for. I came to this industry in 2005 from the telecommunications space. I worked at MCI where our sole mission was to break up the AT&T monopoly on U.S. Telecommunications. That singular focus led to dramatic breakthroughs in communications. For example, MCI invented e-mail and was a pioneer in internet services. Those innovations led to choices and freedom for users of telecom services.
In the payments industry, innovation has led to many enhanced services and choices for consumers. A few examples are things like cross-selling, where we can sell additional products or services to existing customers, exit consoles to keep customers from leaving and customer retention, which helps reduce churn in recurring and subscription models to extend the lifetime value of a customer.
As competition heats up, innovating and getting creative are sure ways to keep gaining market share and drive revenue.
More Options Improves Customer Service
For those of us at MCI, it was obvious more options were needed for consumers. While it seems like the dark ages now, it used to be that businesses like 1-800-FLOWERS could not “port” their vanity numbers away from AT&T. Essentially, AT&T had the numbers locked up, controlling pricing and services, leaving consumers stuck.
At MCI, we spent 20-plus years working to get licenses and the right to compete, enabling “800 portability.” Once portability hit the marketplace, AT&T was forced to engage. They could no longer gouge on pricing; they had to offer better options and provide a good level of customer service to keep customers. The AT&T breakup led to other players in the space like Sprint, WorldCom, Verizon and Comcast — which led to lower prices and better products and services.
Much like what we saw in telecommunications, commoditization is becoming an issue in other industries. At Segpay, we believe it’s important to differentiate yourself. We have always looked to the relationships we build and the service we provide as our competitive advantage. When all other factors become a level playing field, service levels usually end up the differentiator for deciding who to do business with.
Solving Pain Points
Competition makes us look at customers’ pain points and develop solutions. And as the U.S. is the world’s premier free market economy, it depends on capitalism to thrive. In our economic system, prices are decided by unrestricted competition between companies. This competition brings choices. With them, merchants don’t feel like they’re being held hostage. Competition forces traditional monopolies to improve their fair practices for example, eliminating things like mandatory contractual requirements.
Such a competitive move, which we embrace, will break a stranglehold that others have used to discourage their clients from using alternative payment processing solutions. Having a true understanding of your clients’ pain points and what is disrupting their business is critical in a competitive marketplace. Being able to provide meaningful solutions to those problems is what will make your organization thrive.
Providing Value
Competition exists well outside of payments. We have seen more hosting companies come and go as they are required to offer more competitive services and provide value to the space. The emergence of multiple cam platforms offers models a variety of options. Competition requires each provider to offer great payout rates, training services and state-of-the-art back-ends to manage their business. We’ve seen growth of clip and fan platforms too, with each new player to the space offering something different for their consumer base as well as the models that use their platform. It stretches to the affiliate world too. Website affiliate or cash programs are required to present transparency, good payouts and a clean back-end so affiliates are assured and comfortable that they will earn their commissions.
It’s important to be a champion of competition, because everyone wins when we all compete.
Cathy Beardsley is president and CEO of Segpay, a global leader in merchant services offering a wide range of custom financial solutions including payment facilitator, direct merchant accounts and secure gateway services. Under her direction, Segpay has become one of four companies approved by Visa to operate as a high-risk internet payment services provider. Segpay offers secure turnkey solutions to accept online payments, with a guarantee that funds are always safe and protected with its proprietary Fraud Mitigation System and customer service and support. For any questions or help, contact sales@segpay.com or compliance@segpay.com.