Bruno Farinelli
To grow their business and keep customers happy and orders flowing, e-commerce merchants must operate like a finely tuned machine. That means a company’s fraud prevention team must be prepared to quickly evaluate orders for their fraud risk and submit approved transactions for fulfillment. But coordinating these processes with automated order management systems isn’t always simple — especially if it requires IT knowledge that’s out of the fraud team’s area of expertise.
But by following these three best practices for integrating a company’s fraud and order management systems, e-commerce merchants can ensure their business is always running smoothly.
1. Check in With an IT Consultant
Not all fraud management teams have extensive IT expertise or fully understand exactly how their order management software works. That’s understandable. After all, most of these systems are automated by software or other SaaS systems — which are generally out of the area of expertise for the fraud team.
But having a trusted IT consultant on hand to give insight on how a company’s IT resources and order management procedures may be affected by a selected fraud solution can prove invaluable.
Luckily, finding that trusted professional shouldn’t be hard. Many e-commerce developers already understand the importance of coordinating order management systems with fraud prevention solutions and can easily help merchants evaluate and seamlessly integrate available solutions.
2. Ensure Orders Fill Automatically
Some e-commerce merchants may be concerned that their order management software won’t be able to integrate with their chosen fraud protection solutions. If that were to happen, they’d have to go through the time-consuming process of manually entering orders into the order management system after the fraud team approves them. And that can result in delayed customer fulfillment and increased customer frustration.
Luckily, these two systems can almost always be configured so orders are automatically fulfilled after the fraud team’s approval. Even better, many fraud management systems offer this integration as a built-in feature (depending on the e-commerce platform).
Even if the integration isn’t offered through the fraud management solution, it’s still generally simple (although it might be more complicated for heavily customized websites). But because merchants should already have an IT consultant on speed-dial, even complex integrations don’t have to slow down their business and ruin their chances for success.
3. Know Your Options
Before merchants commit to a fraud protection solution, they should explore their options and understand how each will work to protect their business against fraud and integrate into the company’s existing order management system. Although integration or switching to a new provider isn’t necessarily difficult, it’s not a process an e-commerce merchant wants to repeat often simply because they didn’t do their homework the first time around.
Another important factor to consider is whether the provider they choose has an IT support and customer service center that’s available 24/7/365. After all, e-commerce merchants never close, so neither should their service providers.
Finding the right vendors to put your business on the path to success isn’t easy, but it is possible — and our free Merchant Guide for e-Commerce Fraud Protection can help. We offer insights into the factors you must consider before making a choice and help walk you through the decision-making process.
When you’re ready to implement a solution that lets you fulfill orders automatically as the fraud team approves them and is available at all times for assistance, just contact us. We’ll be happy to show you why merchants around the world trust ClearSale for seamless integration and secure protection.