COMMENTARY: The Cost of Friction: Rethinking the Payment Experience

In the world of payments, it’s easy to focus on the visible costs—processing fees, transaction expenses, vendor rates. But often, the real cost hides in plain sight. It shows up when a payment fails, when a customer gives up mid-transaction, or when confusion leads to a flood of support calls. These moments of friction carry a much steeper price than most businesses realize.

Each failed or repaired payment costs more than $12 on average, and nearly half of businesses report a payment-failure rate between 2% and 5%. Multiply that by 12 thousands—or millions—of transactions, and the numbers escalate quickly. But the impact isn’t just financial. It’s operational, too. Support teams spend hours resolving avoidable issues. Customer service suffers. Trust erodes. And worst of all, would-be payments never get completed.

Despite these consequences, many organizations still treat payments as isolated transactions rather than connected experiences. But a payment doesn’t begin at the point of transaction—it begins the moment a customer decides to pay, and continues until the process is successfully completed. Within that journey, any number of breakdowns can occur: an expired card, a missed confirmation email, a poorly designed interface. These aren’t just technical glitches. They’re barriers that drive up costs and drive away customers.

Reducing these barriers requires a shift in mindset. Rather than asking, “Did the payment go through?” businesses need to ask, “Was the experience designed to help the payment succeed?” That’s the foundation of payment-experience management: the practice of minimizing the total cost of acceptance by designing frictionless, adaptive, and intelligent payment journeys.

When the payment process creates confusion, customers pick up the phone. But in most cases, they don’t want to. They want a clear, simple way to fix the issue themselves without waiting on hold or jumping between channels. Platforms designed for self-service can make that possible, offering personalized, real-time guidance that resolves problems before they become exceptions. This not only improves the experience but reduces the operational burden of live support.

For self-service to succeed, though, the underlying payment platform must be more than functional—it must be proactive. That means building in flexibility at every step, allowing the platform to respond dynamically as conditions change. A one-size-fits-all payment flow can’t account for the complexities of real-world usage. A dynamic platform can.

Too often, those complexities are overlooked. Much of the payments industry still designs around the “ideal” user: tech-savvy, mobile-first, and fluent in digital interactions. But real customers don’t all fit that mold. Many are ready and willing to pay, yet struggle with outdated workflows, complicated logins, or limited payment options. These aren’t fringe scenarios—they’re common, costly, and entirely addressable.

Delivering that kind of seamless experience requires more than just a menu of payment options. It requires a platform that can intelligently adapt. Payment methods, regulations, and customer needs are constantly evolving. Platforms must evolve with them—without requiring constant reengineering. Intelligent automation makes this possible, enabling businesses to tailor experiences based on who’s paying, how they prefer to pay, and what circumstances they face.

Ultimately, the goal is simple: reduce friction, increase completion, and deliver payment journeys that work for everyone. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design. And the more thoughtfully that design accounts for human behavior, the more effective—and cost-efficient—the payment process becomes.

Most customers want to pay. When they don’t, it’s often because the system didn’t make it easy. Businesses need to deliver thoughtful, well-designed payment experiences that reduce friction. When that happens, payments flow. Support lines quiet down. And as friction decreases, so does the total cost of acceptance.

—John Minor is chief product officer at PayNearMe.