Payment technology firm Ingenico has announced the launch of a solution that embeds payments directly into a slew of messaging bots. Merchants with messaging bots will now have payment-enabled capabilities, achieving a more seamless conversion.
“The payment process is the bottleneck in any conversion funnel, and that goes for conversational commerce through messaging apps as well. Remove friction from that process, and you widen the funnel, boosting conversion,” explained Pierre-Antoine Vacheron, executive vice president of Ingenico ePayments.
The new initiative will help customers and businesses with an online presence to connect via “conversational commerce” on Facebook Messenger, Skype, LINE, Kik, Telegram, WeChat and Slack. The embedding allows for a more unified experience for both the consumer and the retailer, eliminating the need to step — or tap — outside the messaging app in order to complete a purchase. This continuity is slated to result, according to the company, in more conversions and revenue.
It allows a retailer to link the capability to multiple messaging platforms, while linking and integrating with its existing systems. The company said that the goal is to eventually allow the retailer to cull truly holistic customer analytics.
Highlighting this as a new demonstration of how digital innovation can speed up the generation of new Ingenico offers, Michel Léger, executive vice president of Ingenico Labs, said the strategy behind this launch is to anticipate new consumer habits while both removing friction and enhancing conversion.
“Social media and social commerce are definitely trends to watch, and focusing on adding payment into messaging apps seemed unavoidable,” said Léger. “Allowing merchants to leverage our full portfolio of payment methods directly from a messaging bot will significantly remove friction from conversational commerce, while boosting conversion.”
Other company executives added that, with the new messaging solution, merchants will be able to access Ingenico’s complete portfolio of international payment methods directly from any messaging bot.
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