Consumer demand for convenience continues to fuel the growth in e-commerce. As the number of online options increases, so do consumer expectations. Visually appealing sites with crisp photography, detailed information and customer reviews, and easily accessible customer service, including 24 hour live chat, are among the more common and desirable features. However, speed and efficiency are crucial to a positive customer experience.

Online customers are not the most patient shoppers. If a website doesn’t load fast enough, they tend to hit the back button. If navigating the website takes more than a few clicks, they may take their business elsewhere. If there is any friction in the checkout process, they may abandon the transaction. To avoid consumer frustration and lost sales, merchants need to create a seamless shopping experience from start to finish.

To talk about how to reduce friction in the consumer experience, PaymentsJournal sat down with Gary Sevounts, Chief Marketing Officer, at Kount, and Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group.

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Consumer Experience

As consumers are faced with more online retail options, reducing friction and providing a positive shopping experience is increasingly important to business success. Research shows that “41% of shoppers say that they would increase their spending with a business if they received a more tailored experience,” stated Sevounts.

For merchants to provide a premium, tailored shopping experience, they must be able to recognize their returning customers immediately, not only in order to present options based on their previous interests and purchases, but also to provide smooth checkout experiences. “Being able to recognize these customers allows merchants to reduce friction by avoiding the unnecessary authentication of known customers,” noted Sevounts.

Reducing Fraud, Chargebacks, and False Positives

Fraud prevention strategies must be able to identify returning customers instantaneously. If the trust level is high, the transaction should be seamless. If the customer has been identified as a good customer but something looks a little off, merchants need the opportunity to elevate authentication requirements so that they won’t lose legitimate sales by falsely identifying a transaction as fraudulent.

On the other hand, the ability to quickly and accurately identify fraud enables merchants to stop bad transactions before they happen, eliminating the substantial costs associated with disputed transactions and chargebacks.