Fraud Protection That Doesn’t Ruin Your Customers’ Online Experience

With the number and variety of criminal strategies growing every day, it’s tempting to want to pile on as many safeguards and security measures as possible. But it’s important not to lose sight of one key element in your e-commerce strategy: the customer experience.It wasn’t so long ago that making things easy, convenient and comfortable for the online shopper was the number one concern of merchants. But as the fraud threat has grown and businesses have scrambled to find their ideal fraud protection services, the customer experience has in many cases gotten left by the wayside, with complicated checkout procedures and multi-layer verification exercises that make it safer, perhaps, but also less convenient and more unpleasant than ever to make a simple purchase.

So what can you can do to keep your customers happy and keep potential fraudsters at bay? The answer lies in your ability to execute a carefully planned fraud prevention strategy with flexibility and broad-mindedness.

Flexibility

Strict, rigid security fraud detection measures can lead to slow order response times or high rates of false declines. If this happens, you’ll have a different problem entirely on your hands: unhappy customers that leave your website and seek out your competition.

A better bet is to arm yourself with as much data and insight as you can in advance, so you’re ready when a customer comes knocking at your virtual door.

This may involve some work on your part. For example, a good practice is to collect data on both approved and declined transactions, so you can quickly compare incoming transactions against both data profiles. You might also connect with a fraud prevention network, which can give you access to data from several merchants.

Additionally, staying on top of fraud trends in general – either via your own reporting, or by partnering with an expert fraud protection service – will help keep you from being caught unawares.

Ultimately, your goal is to equip yourself to make decisions that are more informed and more nuanced than a hard-line, black-and-white security system may be capable of making.   

Broad-Mindedness

Being on the lookout for the red flags of fraud is a key aspect of staying ahead of the threat, but here again a little nuance in your online fraud protection system can go a long way toward maintaining a positive customer experience.

In other words, a red flag should be exactly that – an indication that a transaction might be fraudulent, not definitive proof that is in fact fraudulent. 

For example, automatically declining unusually large online orders, international orders, or requests for different shipping addresses is a surefire way to shut out good customers for good. These are all warning signs, yes, but they warrant closer inspection before making a final decision.

While your online fraud protection system should certainly alert you to suspicious orders, these warning signs should signal the need for a more in-depth investigation, as opposed to the immediate end of the order (and, likely, the customer relationship as well).

The goal is to create the ideal customer experience – one that is both secure and convenient.

What would that look like? It would likely start with a strong, comprehensive online fraud protection service that combines human, expert analysis with automated screening. This will give you access to a world of insights beyond your own narrow experience, and it will allow you to treat gray areas as just that: opportunities to probe further.

The result will be a shopping cart checkout procedure that isn’t bogged down by blocked transactions, follow-up phone calls or over-the-top authentication procedures, and isn’t followed up by the messy business of fraud remediation.  

If this ideal scenario isn’t where your online fraud protection is now, contact us at contact@clear.sale to learn how we can help your business get there.