The more technology opens up new ways for people to shop, the more shoppers’ expectations evolve. Businesses have recognized and embraced the potential of omnichannel, and they’ve been proven right given the growing success of offerings like buy now, pay later (BNPL)1 and buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS).2
But studies show that when it comes to digital features, shoppers just can’t get enough; they want even more than their preferred brands are currently offering.3
It’s certainly a good problem to have. However, as you open more touchpoints for your customers, it can be hard to keep everything running smoothly.
So, let’s look at how you could design a commerce strategy with payments and AI at its core. And we'll also unravel how it could help you deliver exceptional customer experiences while unlocking opportunities for improved customer engagement, innovation, and growth.
Step 1: Connecting everything, everywhere, all at once
Omnichannel expands the shopping experience like never before. It can help you reach customers in new places and new ways. But the growing number of payment and shopping experiences can potentially feel fragmented—for you as well as your customers.
This is where unified commerce comes in. It stitches together all the omnichannel fragments into a whole. And by integrating all your channels and payment solutions onto one platform, you can reduce friction for you and your customers—turning the payment moment into an opportunity to supercharge every part of the shopping experience.
The journey looks a little like this:
- Powerful AI works with high-volume, high-quality data.
- Key metrics within customer data are analyzed quickly.
- Customer experience can be deeply personalized.4
- Every customer feels seen and valued.
- Customers are more likely to return.
Not only can the experience be rewarding for your customers, but it can also keep everything running smoothly on the business side too, so you can have better visibility and greater control of every part of your omnichannel offering. The more experience elements you choose to implement, the more you can look forward to returning customers––and welcoming brand new ones.
But it’s vital that with all this data over multiple touchpoints, you make a key moment – the payment –watertight. Management of payments, whether it’s payment methods or your chosen channels, is where Service Orchestration comes in.
Step 2: Your harbor in the storm
Service Orchestration’s aim is to help improve authorization rates and drive higher revenue while helping maximize your fraud strategy. AI and data can play an instrumental role in helping the payment authorization process be more robust. They do this by providing the right information and context so everything’s likely to go through more smoothly for customers.
Service Orchestration broadly works like this:
- Data enrichment enhances authorization requests by adding, updating, or deleting information.
- Dynamic retry improves payment approval rates by automatically retrying following a decline.
- Smart routing routes transactions to the processors most likely to approve them.
- Filtering prevents avoidable declines.
- Payment insights provide deeper transaction insights and transparency for further analysis and optimization.
This can also help boost your fraud management strategy—thanks to fewer false declines and improved pre- and post-payment authorization checks.
So, with happy customers, a bolstered fraud strategy, and increased revenue, your business can grow in confidence, and start to further explore the possibilities of unified commerce, including building loyalty and adopting innovations. More on Service Orchestration on our blog.
How AI lives in the real world
When South American department store chain Falabella decided to embrace the idea of fast fashion, they took a slightly different approach. They implemented a BOPIS strategy with an impressive customer promise—a 90-minute collection window.
But it was harder than expected to deliver on this promise, especially during busy sales events when manual review of orders for potential fraud quickly became unmanageable. So Falabella activated Decision Manager, our AI-powered fraud management solution, to automate things. This significantly lowered the number of manual reviews, and with fashionistas able to get their hands on the latest trends faster, customer satisfaction also improved.5
Are you ready to reap the rewards?
It’s easy to underestimate the impact these solutions can have on your business. Just as it was for Falabella, when the right ones are implemented, the rewards can be great.
Our suite of Unified Commerce and Service Orchestration solutions driven by AI and data finely tuned to your business needs, can help you streamline operations, leading to enhanced customer experiences, less friction in your back- office processes, and increased revenue.
They are an ultimate way to connect and help optimize the entire sales and payment ecosystem.
Find out how you can seamlessly connect all the touchpoints between you and your customers with our Unified Commerce solution.
1 https://www.fintechfutures.com/techwire/global-buy-now-pay-later-market-size-to-exceed-usd-160-7-billion-by-2032
2 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1423853/global-bopis-online-order-share/
3 GDSI 2024 (p 24) https://www.pymnts.com/visa/2024/meet-click-and-mortar-shopper-fastest-growing-shopper-segment-worldwide/
4 For customers who have opted in or shown interest in receiving personalized messaging
5 https://www.cybersource.com/content/dam/documents/en/falabella-fraud-case-study.pdf
Disclaimer: Case studies, comparisons, statistics, research, and recommendations are provided “AS IS” and intended for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for operational, marketing, legal, technical, tax, financial or other advice. Visa neither makes any warranty or representation as to the completeness or accuracy of the information herein, nor assumes any liability or responsibility that may result from reliance on such information. The Information contained herein is not intended as investment or legal advice, and readers are encouraged to seek the advice of a competent professional where such advice is required.
This content includes references to offerings from Cybersource and Authorize.net, which are part of the Visa Acceptance Solutions family of brands.