A unified payments journey—every step of the way

Understandably, merchants want to avoid checkout abandonment. It can be caused by a range of pain points, but unified commerce makes them less likely—thanks to the acceptance of popular local and global cards and alternative payment options such as buy now, pay later (BNPL). You’re also–unsurprisingly—more likely to see customers complete checkout when you highlight promotional fares. These offers can be customized, thanks to the data-driven insights provided by tokenization.

Let’s imagine Vanessa. She flies regularly for both work and pleasure. The booking experience is flawless, as Unified Checkout Integration always remembers her preferred payment method. She’s making the booking in a rushed lunchbreak, so seeing her payment details already pre-populated in a one-click checkout by Token Management Service saves a crucial few minutes. It remembers her preferred car rental firm too, which is handy. And the promotional fare to her favorite destination? That was the part that really made her smile.

The day of her flight’s arrived, and she speeds through self-service check-in and bag drop—plus it’s no problem to pay for an extra checked bag. Pre-buying in-flight refreshments via the airline app means she’s sure to get her preferred meal, too.

On this occasion the flight was as smooth as the unified commerce interactions, but if Vanessa’s ever affected by an issue like a cancellation or lost luggage, a swift refund could transform an unfortunate situation into a positive story she’ll tell her friends about. Even better if the refund or compensation comes via Payouts, for a fast and secure transfer of funds. Every pleasant experience cement Vanessa’s feeling of customer satisfaction and means that she most likely won’t hesitate to fly again with the same airline in the future.

Sure enough, three months later, since the Token Management Service has made it possible for the airline to see that she typically buys flights a few times a year, their well-timed email successfully converts to another sale, this time to a new destination with an irresistible promotion.

In the rare event that Vanessa wants to question a payment, an airline using an end-to-end dispute management solution will give Vanessa the transparency needed to understand the details of her transaction, all within her banking portal. This cushions the impact on customer satisfaction and reduces the airline's losses to 'friendly' fraud.

Vanessa’s story demonstrates just how frictionless unified commerce can be for customers, but what about for you? Well, it’s just easy for businesses. Being modular, you can help optimize everything by simply plugging different components in and out whenever you want. Fancy experimenting with buy now, pay later to see impact on sales? No problem. Try Verifi for a quarter? Absolutely. 

Under the surface of Vanessa’s effortless airline experience, a lot of hard-working unified commerce systems were at play. Let’s take a closer look at them:

• Digital Accept allows you to easily accept customers preferred payment methods and create a frictionless checkout experience. 
• In-person Accept provides the necessary infrastructure for in-person payments acceptance—including out-of-the-box terminals and a toolkit for global connectivity.
• Token Management Service securely stores and tokenizes customers’ payment data to help you provide your customers’ seamless shopping experiences tailored to their preferences. It also helps you gather insights into your customer’s buying behavior that you can use to build brand loyalty through offers and rewards.  
• Account Updater keeps customers’ stored payment information up to date to help improve authorization rates.
• Decision Manager helps reduce fraud and increase revenue. 
• Unified Checkout Integration provides a single secure interface for accepting popular payment methods.
• Global Gateway provides access to 250+ acquirers and processors in 160+ countries and territories¹ so popular local payment methods can be accepted from almost anywhere in the world.
• Verifi Helps prevent chargebacks (disputes about a transaction) It's available on Visa Acceptance Solutions.
   

Find out how airlines can use payment innovation through unified commerce solutions to help.