Every technology has weaknesses, and there are times when its operation is disrupted and causes interruptions.
The payment gateway is no exception. Sometimes payment gateways experience technical issues that delay payment processing, commonly referred to as downtime.
You should not underestimate these problems, as they can lead to financial losses. Even minor problems with the payment gateway can negatively impact your finances.
You may panic when these problems occur and not know how to react. But even if you are not responsible for fixing payment gateway issues, your response to these problems is still crucial to minimize financial losses.
In this article, you will learn what actions you can take when a payment gateway goes down and how you can prepare for similar problems in the future.
What is payment gateway downtime and why should you care about it?
For payment gateways, downtime is a period during which one or more payment options do not function normally, resulting in delays or failures in payment processing.
You may often associate the term downtime with problems in the network infrastructure. However, in reality, there are many reasons why downtime can occur. Here are some of them:
- Technical problems: These include hardware or software system failures, such as server reliability issues, network instability or bugs.
- Network maintenance: Sometimes, payment systems experience temporary interruptions due to maintenance or upgrades.
- Security threats: Payment gateway providers may be forced to temporarily shut down their systems in the event of cyberattacks or suspicious activity to investigate and resolve the situation.
- High transaction volume: If the transaction volume exceeds the payment gateway's system capacity, payment processing tends to slow down or even fail. This situation typically occurs during peak sales periods, such as Christmas, Lunar New Year, or school vacations.
- Problems with third-party services: Payment gateway providers often rely on third-party services, such as internet service providers, hosting services, or banking networks. If these services are interrupted, payment processing via the payment gateway is also affected.
A failure of the payment gateway system can disrupt the entire operation of online businesses. So if you run an online business and use a payment gateway, you should not underestimate this problem, as it can lead to significant financial losses.
Downtime makes it impossible for your customers to complete payments, so you end up losing potential revenue. Your financial losses can become even greater if such issues go unresolved for too long. You can imagine how much revenue you have lost during such a period.
Worse still, if your payment gateway system continues to malfunction, your customers will lose trust in your business and switch to your competitors who use more stable payment networks.
How to respond payment gateway downtime
Downtimes in the payment gateway system are not your fault. You can complain to your payment gateway provider if such a situation arises. At the same time, you must also act proactively to minimize the financial losses caused by this problem.
Here are some measures you can take to reduce the financial losses during the downtime.
1. Contact your payment gateway provider
The first step during the downtime is to communicate with your payment gateway provider. In this case, you can inquire about the current situation by asking important questions, such as what the problem is, how long it will take to fix it, what remedial action is being taken and who can be contacted at any time during the emergency.
You can also ask for instructions on what you can do during the downtime to speed up the resolution of the problem. You should also regularly check the provider's official website or customer service channels for updates on the status of the problem.
2. Communicate the issue with customers
You certainly don't want the payment gateway system to fail. This often happens unexpectedly and you know it's not your fault. However, your customers may assume that the downtime is due to your operating errors. Such a perception can undermine their trust in your business.
To maintain your customers' trust, you should therefore communicate the problems to them as clearly and timely as possible. This way, you can reassure them that you don't want the problem either, but will do everything you can to resolve it.
In this case, you can write a message that you can publish on your website, social media, and app or send it to your customers by email or text message. In it, you can acknowledge the problem, apologize to the customer, state the expected resolution time and mention the steps you are currently taking to resolve the issue.
You can also open up your customer service channels for dialog with customers. This proactive measure will help customers understand the problem and remain loyal to your business.
3. Offer alternative or back-up payment methods
Next, you can offer your customers to pay with other payment options that are not interrupted by payment gateway outages, so they can still complete their transactions while you wait for the issues to be resolved.
For example, you can ask your customers to pay by bank transfer during the downtime, as this method is not affected by the disruption to your payment gateway system.
This measure will motivate your customers to finalize their payments and minimize the financial losses caused by the payment gateway system's failures.
How to prepare for the next payment gateway downtime
You need to be aware that payment gateway failures can happen not only once, but also in the future. And what's worse, it can happen unpredictably.
Therefore, even if you already know how to respond to payment gateway outages, you should also learn how to prepare for the same problem in the future. Here are some preparations you can make.
Analyze transaction data
Data analysis is a key factor in predicting future conditions in business operations. This also applies to payment gateways, which store all the transaction data you have made with your customers. By analyzing this data, you can predict when failures will occur.
The transaction data, especially the rates of successful transactions, usually form specific patterns before a failure occurs. These patterns signal that a problem in the payment gateway system may lead to a failure. You can use these patterns as an alarm to detect technical problems with the payment gateway at an early stage.
But your work doesn't end there. You also need to monitor your transaction data regularly to detect these patterns.
Use multiple payment gateways
As further preparation, you can use more than one payment gateway in your business. This allows you to redirect customer transactions to another payment gateway if a payment gateway system fails.
However, using more than one payment gateway service will undoubtedly increase your operating costs. Nonetheless, this can be an alternative step to minimize the risk of financial losses due to a payment gateway outage in the future.
Monitor updates from the payment gateway provider
As already mentioned, planned actions, especially network maintenance, can also lead to downtime or offline payment gateway systems. Therefore, you should always find out when your payment gateway provider is carrying out maintenance work on the system.
Payment gateway providers usually publish this information on their official website or send notifications to your email or payment gateway dashboard, so you'd better keep an eye on it. You can also take a proactive approach by asking the provider’s customer service to always send you the network maintenance schedule or an early notification of upcoming maintenance work.
If you know this schedule, you can better prepare for the downtime and inform your customers before the impending inconvenience.
Use a payment gateway with a reliable system
You can take preventive measures against downtime even before using a payment gateway. That is, by choosing a payment gateway with a reliable and stable system.
Choosing a payment gateway with a reliable network is important to avoid possible financial losses in the future and to improve customer satisfaction. A trusted payment gateway system will also be beneficial in the future as it will help you process a large volume of transactions smoothly as your business grows.
Therefore, you need to make sure that the payment gateway of your choice has a reliable system that can meet your current business needs and future growth projections.
In addition, you should actively ask providers many questions about the reliability of their payment gateway system, such as how often system interruptions occur and how quickly its customer service team responds to your questions or complaints.
You can also read articles on choosing a payment gateway to learn what factors to consider when selecting one that suits your business needs.
Conclusion
The failure of a payment gateway system can occur unpredictably at any time and cause great damage to your business. While it is not your responsibility to fix such problems, you should act proactively to protect your business from significant financial losses. Therefore, you should equip yourself with the knowledge of how to prepare for these incidents and how to react when these problems occur.
Aspire payment gateway offers a reliable system for your payment operations
If you need a payment gateway with a reliable system and excellent service, Aspire Payment Gateway can be the ideal solution for you.
Aspire uses an infrastructure that meets international standards for security, transaction speed and system stability. In addition, Aspire's customer service team is always ready to answer all your questions and provide technical consultations via chat, email or phone if needed.
Aspire Payment Gateway also offers other benefits that can help you increase conversion, accelerate cash flow and improve customer satisfaction.
- Complete payment options. With Aspire’s payment gateway, you can accept payments from over 26 payment methods, including bank transfers, e-wallets and credit cards. This feature gives your customers payment flexibility and improves their shopping experience.
- Competitive and transparent fees. With Aspire, you only pay fees per successful transaction, with no registration or subscription fees. All fees are displayed transparently, so you do not have to worry about hidden costs.
- Easy integration. You can automate payments by integrating your website with easy-to-use plugins or APIs.
Keen to learn more about how Aspire can help you improve your organization’s financial operations and streamline workflows? Talk to our sales team today, or sign up for free to get started.
Frequently Asked Questions
