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Payments and profits are, no doubt, the lifeblood of any business, no matter the size and scale of the business. Whether it is a multinational chain store, your neighbourhood grocery shop or a single-owner online business, arguably the most important factor that ensures a long and profitable run of any business is the kind of user experience they are able to provide their customers with. This includes everything from ease of product discovery and selection to billing and payment processes – the latter being a major factor influencing customer satisfaction and eventually, retention.

Up until a decade ago, traditional payment methods, i.e., cash and credit/debit cards were the norm in a majority of retail transactions, making it mandatory for merchants to equip their physical stores with a card swipe machine. Then, in 2016, UPI payments were introduced in India, adding yet another payment method to the fold. This fundamentally redesigned the way the payment system works in India, with more and more customers across all age groups moving away from traditional payment methods and the corresponding hassle of carrying around cash and cards at all times and choosing digital payment solutions over the former option. The COVID-19 pandemic that hit the globe in 2019 only further reinstated the majority customers’ preference of contactless payment solutions such as UPI and online wallets over cash and card payments.

What are the Challenges of Traditional Payment Systems?

While traditional payment options certainly worked in an economy that was yet to be digitised and in an environment that was mostly focused on retail over online shopping, the modern market of the 21st century demands certain payment options that significantly ease the process of billing and payments for customers while ensuring utmost levels of security in the process.

Let’s take a look at some challenges faced by the traditional payment methods such as cash, cards, and occasionally, bank cheques.

Multiple Modes of Payment

One of the biggest drawbacks of the traditional payment system that is further highlighted by the tremendous growth of digital and contactless payment solutions is the hassle of multiple payment modes. According to their preference, customers can either choose to pay with cash or card, which makes it necessary for merchants to invest in POS systems, secure cash registers, card swipe machines, and so on – which is an additional cost that not all merchants are able to afford. Furthermore, in the case of small businesses like grocery stores, card payments are seldom an option, which might further deter customers with a shortage of cash liquidity from choosing that business in the future.

Long Queues in Stores

Another challenge faced by retail or offline stores are long queues at the billing counter. This is only further fuelled by the presence of traditional payment methods such as cash and cards, wherein customers must present themselves at the checkout area one at a time, thus leading to even longer queues at checkout, the consequent frustration of customers and eventually, reluctance to visit the particular store and opting for other, more convenient options.

Tendering Change

All customers at some point, have faced the problem of lack of sufficient change from the merchant upon payment. In case of small amounts of change, customers are often handed out items like chocolates at checkout as a substitute. This not only leads to an unnecessary loss for the customer – even if it is a small number – it also leads to customers developing an unfavourable opinion of that business, eventually failing to retain them as a repeat customer.

Technology Integration

Often, small-to-medium sized businesses are unable to afford the technology that is required to enable any payment method other than physical cash. Especially in an economy like India where a large number of businesses hail from rural and semi-urban areas, integration and adoption of technology such as swipe machines can be a pain point for many business owners and merchants.

Theft

One of the biggest challenges of the traditional payment and checkout system that majorly involves cash is the risk of threat. Although digital payment methods do pose a certain level of security issues, cash payment systems are highly vulnerable to petty theft and robberies. While one remedy to this is the other traditional alternative to cash – debit and credit cards – it is not a feasible solution for all kinds and size of businesses.

What is Voice Technology?

Up until recently, digital payments in India could only be made using the internet, which includes QR code payments, NFC (Near Field Communication), and UPI. This proved to be a roadblock for many consumers, as a steady digital network or even smartphone technology has not yet penetrated the far corners of the country.

However, all mobile phones – feature phone or smartphone – are capable of transmitting and processing voice, which forms the basis of payments enabled via voice technology and therefore, provides an alternative medium of communication between the customer and the merchant at the PoS. The process of such payment begins with the merchant’s payment device emitting a sound wave that contains secure, encrypted data. Next, these waves are received by the customer’s mobile device and converted into analogue signals. Finally, the customer takes the required action to authenticate and further complete the transaction.

How Can Voice Technology Help Remedy Challenges of the Traditional Payment Systems?

A majority of mobile phone users in India own smartphones, however, a staggering number of people – 440 million – still use feature phones. Back in 2016 when UPI payments were introduced in the country, it failed to provide an alternative for these hundreds of millions of feature phone as well as digitally illiterate consumers. Through voice-led payments facilitated by platforms such as UPI 123Pay and VoiceSe, it has now become possible to include more and more consumers under the umbrella of digital financial inclusion. Voice technology is thus an extremely viable alternative for traditional and even digital payment systems as it enables online payments without the dependency on technological infrastructure like smartphones and data connection. These mediums also allow for more than just money transfer. For instance, ToneTag’s VoiceSe payment platform enables customers to not only transfer money to peers and make merchant payments, but also complete other transactions such as LPG payments, electricity bill payments, post-paid mobile recharge, and more. Moreover, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, it also helps that voice technology is able to provide us with a completely contactless payment solution.

In more ways than one, PoS mobile payments made using voice technology can help rectify problems posed by traditional payment methods such as cash and swipe card machines. The first and foremost factor is financial inclusivity. By informing customers that they no longer need expensive smartphones and a steady data connection in order to make payments, we are now able to provide great ease of access to digital payments to even the most secluded, digitally illiterate sections of the country. This is further fuelled by the fact that technology integration for voice-based PoS payment solutions is extremely low-effort and cost-effective – thus enabling more and more merchants to choose this technology over other PoS mobile payment solutions.

Furthermore, voice technology provides a level of security that is unparalleled by any other payment system. Most e-payment systems like UPI, digital wallets, etc. are vulnerable to security threats such as data theft, hacking, and scams even with two-factor authentication. In cases of ecommerce payment systems, the lack of real-time acknowledgement may allow customers to scam merchants by showing falsified proof of payment. Voice-based payment systems make use of Blockchain-based decentralised ledgers to ensure utmost levels of security for both customers and merchants. Moreover, sound waves are encrypted end-to-end, further helping prevent security issues related to digital payments.

In essence, online (e-commerce) as well as PoS mobile payments fuelled by voice technology are a highly viable, secure, and efficient mode of payment for all parties involved in the transaction. It provides consumers with a methodology that combines the reliability and availability of cash payments with the speed and convenience of digital payments in one go. It helps bring to fruition the government’s vision for a completely digitally inclusive India without forcing consumers to upgrade their mobile devices or merchants to invest in expensive payment systems for their business.

It is the year 2022 – a full six years since the Reserve Bank of India introduced the concept and technology of UPI, or Unified Payment Interface, to the people of India in 2016. For a developing country with millions of smartphone users, this was welcome news – people could finally take the cashless route without having to get engaged in the inconvenience that is net banking.

However, India being a developing country, there still exist millions of people who do not have access to a smartphone, hail from areas with minimal to no data connectivity or inconsistent network, or are simply not digital natives savvy enough to make online payments – which pushes against the Government’s agenda to transform the nation’s economy into one that is digital, secure, and completely cashless.

Voice Se VoiceSe UPI 123 Pay
Introducing VoiceSe

In the light of this challenge and to bridge the gap between over 44 crore feature phone users and digital payments, the Reserve Bank of India recently launched a new UPI service for feature phones named UPI 123Pay. ToneTag, the world’s largest soundwave-based communication network, in its own attempt to add to this effort has introduced a voice-based UPI platform called VoiceSe, under the guidance of RBI and in partnership with NSDL Payment Bank and NPCI.

VoiceSe is not only India’s fastest-growing voice-based payments system, it is also one that can be accessed from any type of phone, both feature and smartphone – something that has been missing from India’s digital payment landscape since its inception. Now, by using just their voice, customers can perform simple banking transactions even from a basic feature phone – thus bringing a solid chunk of India’s feature phone users under the much-needed umbrella of financial inclusion.

Further, since VoiceSe is not internet-dependent, it can be easily used for payments even in areas with little or no data connectivity. While all or most digital payment platforms require a strong internet connection to be operable, VoiceSe can be used just as easily simply on a mobile network instead of the usual mandate of a mobile data or wifi network. Besides money transfer, VoiceSe’s payment-to-merchant technology is also internet-independent as well as proximity-based and works on any merchant POS, mobile phones, and other payment acceptance devices, while also providing real-time payment acknowledgment

The average attention span of a common person is 8 seconds. That is what brands have to work with – 8 seconds. The marketing space is constricted and overcrowded with brands competing for consumer attention with creative ads and funky content, but they are dealing with an increasingly impatient customer; one who finds the YouTube 5 second skip ad time too long, and can’t wait to skip the ad, or has already installed ad-blockers, or simply switches the TV channel when an Ad comes on.

How do brands keep up with this ever-shortening window of attention and most importantly – how do brands communicate their key message in under 5 seconds?

And as all good solutions, the answer to these questions starts with a ‘What if”.

What if we make advertisements interactive. What if we make it experiential. What if advertisements can make customers buy the product while watching the ad. What if an ad isn’t just a glossy sales pitch.

With this aim, ToneTag developed SonicEngage, a software tool to make advertisements interactive, engaging, and immersive. The software is a master marketing tool that is universally compatible across all platforms of TV, OTT, Social Media, radio, and other digital platforms and operates in synergy with all formats of content.

How does SonicEngage work?

The most important feature of SonicEngage is that it makes the customer’s journey of buying the product significantly shorter. Normally, when a customer views a TV or digital media advertisement, he/she doesn’t go and make the purchase immediately and postpones the purchase for later, even though he/she likes the product. This is because of the absence of a trigger to purchase. SonicEngage provides this stimulus through pop-ups or notifications to buy the product on his/her phone while the product’s ad is playing on TV. This stimulus increases the chances of purchase significantly, especially if there is a special limited-time offer running on the product.

Apart from this, the customer’s online buying journey is one of confusion and endless browsing. Once the customer has seen the advertisement and decides to make a purchase, he/she is confronted with scores of online shopping platforms selling a plethora of similar items from rival brands and offering other alternate products. The customer is also exposed to different communications and advertising that make the buying journey confusing and perplexing. This indirectly affects the performance of the marketing campaign and thus adversely affects the ROI.

SonicEngage deals with this problem directly and removes the confusion by helping the customer navigate directly to the product’s buying page.

Besides this, brands can employ SonicEngage for an array of benefits and features. The details of which are given below:

SonicEngage for TV and OTT:

  1. The viewer can purchase the clothes, accessories, and items that they see on screen in movies or series.
  2. SonicEngage collates customer data related to their likings, preference, and personality based on their preferred genre, language, watching history, and wishlist.
  3. The Virtual Theatre connects a customer to his/her family and friends stimulating an environment of watching together.
  4. The customer can engage in live polling and chatting while watching the content
  5. The viewer-celebrity real-time virtual handshake takes your customers to their favorite stars on-screen stimulating an actual meeting.

Thus, SonicEngage is capable of creating an immersive and captivating experience that people have never seen before.

SonicEngage is tailor-made to embed into Social Media and other digital platforms such as Youtube or Metacafe, and not only creates an immersive environment but also accumulates valuable customer data that brands can analyze to increase ROI and eliminate marketing inefficiencies.

SonicEngage for SocialMedia and other digital platforms:

  1. Brands can track the performance of their ads as well as competitor ads on Digital platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. This data helps the brand analyze competitor space and understand the customer’s persona and mood
  2. Brands can create effective media plans with the help of conclusive data and increase their returns and also segment users based on their content preferences such as Genre, Language, etc.
  3. Brands can narrow down affluent users to advertise premium products
  4. Branda can segment users based on their affinity to make digital purchases. Example: Whether the users make purchases through Instagram Brand accounts

Additionally, SonicEngage allows brands to send messages of discounts and deals through targeted messaging to select customers and establish a personal connection with the customer. The software enables brands to create business conversations with the customers in their own living rooms.

So, while brands are trying to sell better, SonicEngage enables brands to go a step further and help the customers to buy better. Through SonicEngage, brands can do a lot more than just communicate; brands can virtually hand-hold the customer through the purchase process.

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