Apple, PayPal, and Frictionless (Passwordless) Login Experiences

This came up on my LinkedIn feed this morning and it rings true. Enterprise cybersecurity solutions are now trying to deliver the same user experiences that many B2C companies offer. Technical features now take a back seat to seamless or frictionless experience. If that isn’t provided, users will quickly abandon the ship in favor of another service.

Organizations can directly tie revenue metrics to the login experiences. Metrics like shopping cart abandonment rate. Ayden, Klarna, and Stripe have focused their entire business model around this concept and are each valued well over $1B.

But there is still work to be done. Below, I’ll detail contrast how products from Apple (poor) and PayPal (exceptional) are delivering customer experiences and the reasons why.

Apple TV = Poor User Experience

Example of friction on AppleTV

I am one of the increasing number of cord-cutters, who rely strictly on streaming services versus cable TV. Much to my frustration, the screenshot above is an example of something I encounter on a weekly basis on AppleTV.

1. Going to the link on my smart phone or computer
2. Entering my credentials there with a user name and password

Sounds simple right? Well doing that across different services — ESPN, FOX, ABC, AMC, etc. it adds up. It’s not as easy as clicking on a button on a remote, that’s for sure. More problematic, I don’t stay signed in. I periodically have to log-in again, sometimes weekly or monthly, I am unclear about the logic.

Quite often, I give up entirely and in many respects, abandon the cart. I switch to the competition Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, which offer more seamless logins. It’s only a matter of time before I get frustrated enough to buy a Roku or Amazon Fire Stick.

How to make it better:

• Passwordless Authentication: I should not have to go to my mobile browser and enter a URL along with a username and passwords weekly. A quick and easy improvement would be to include a QR code, which I could scan to at least take me to the site. Better yet, if they could remember my mobile device just scanning that code alone from a trusted device would grant access.
• Standalone App: I’m an Android user. There are many more Android users in the world than Apple users. Providing an Android friendly app for AppleTV users that would remember their logins and allow them to re-authenticate via push notifications, swipes, biometrics, or any other device based methods would go a long way.

PayPal One Touch = Exceptional User Experience

One Touch = Frictionless

PayPal has had this feature around since 2015 apparently, but I only discovered it in the past year in part perhaps because it has been enabled for more merchants. It’s now used by 199 million users and has seen revenue on product grow 22%.

Here’s why I love it:

• Passwordless Authentication: Where AppleTV fails, PayPal One Touch excels. It recognizes my device as trusted. And trusts the security on my device, which I unlock either by face, thumbprint, or PIN. I just click the PayPal option at payment and I’m done.
• Speed & Security: Having to enter my details at multiple merchants, which is cumbersome and requires me to share my financial information with them. With PayPal One Touch, I only share my details with PayPal and reduce my footprint of where my credit card details are stored.

Frictionless Experiences

When I think about user experiences, I immediately think about the government or healthcare. In those worlds, we all have experienced bureaucracy in some way. Usually it is filled with unnecessary steps, inconvenient methods like fax or standard mail, and lengthy wait times.

Unfortunately, we do not have much choice in our healthcare providers or government. Those choices are left to the great states of Ohio and Florida and our employers. However, in almost every other area, including enterprise cybersecurity or consumer technology, the choice is there and the customer journey or experience often begins at the login screen.

Companies must enable customers to use the latest technologies like passwordless to reduce the number of steps to consume services. They also must integrate with 3rd parties easily. In the case of Apple TV they passed you to the 3rd party causing friction, whereas PayPal provided a seamless integration of their service.

I am glad my counterparts are using the terms friction/frictionless in their marketing messaging. They are finally understanding that features are worthless if they are not consumed. That the user experience and integration with existing technology is key. Everything else is secondary.