8th March 2024
Travel companies acknowledge that payments data isn’t a passive reporting tool, rather if all the dots are connected to see the whole picture then there is plenty to gain.
As a merchant, airlines must demand more from the payment specialists they work to reap benefits on several counts. Some of the areas are:
- Understanding the travel shopper: Transaction data provides an insight into how travel shoppers wish to pay, and how that choice varies from product to product and country to country. Companies like Checkout.com emphasise that this understanding can pitch payments as a marketing tool to help entities win new customers. The right payment mix is indispensable. CellPoint Digital points out airlines need to “complete more sales”, and for this they need to allow shoppers to split their payment between payment types, embrace pay-by-link to convert baskets that may have been forgotten or abandoned etc.
- Operational improvements and efficiencies: One major benefit is cutting down on the number of manual referrals when payments are processed. In the area of payment processing optimisation, airlines can focus on optimised routing.
- Conversion rates and authorisation rates: Conversion-related aspects like how long does it take to sign up to a payment method, how to optimize the experience for all the payment methods, as well as what is resulting in payment to fail etc. can have a huge impact on the financial performance.
- Cash flow and liquidity: It is worth evaluating how merchants don’t end up getting impacted by liquidity issues i.e. acquirers holding sizable chunk of cash reserves from merchants until the service is delivered. As for working with acquirers, Elavon urges the airlines to focus on missing data (departure date), downgrade report, pricing data and breakdown, and reconsider routing of transactions.
- Dealing with chargebacks: It is always important for travel merchants to evaluate the nature of disputes, how the process works, and how to prevent them from happening. Looking at the data, merchants can conclude whether cardholders are winning disputes. Merchants need to ensure they rely on data and automation to better manage chargebacks at scale.
- Fraud prevention: Data can help in separating good and bad customers more efficiently. Artificial intelligence is already paving the way for efficient transaction screening, reducing the need for manual intervention.
How to make the most of payments data?
Hear from experts at the upcoming #ATPS2024 in London (22-23 May):
https://www.aiconnects.us/atps-2024/
By Ritesh Gupta, Ai Events
