Clickatell’s “Chat 2 Pay” Enables Brands to Extend Digital Commerce Offering with Secure, Effortless Payments in Chat Channels

Clickatell solves the last mile of digital transformation by embedding payments in the service stream, simplifying digital commerce for consumers

Clickatell, a leader in mobile communications and chat commerce, launches Chat 2 Pay. Chat 2 Pay takes Clickatell’s decades of developing chat commerce solutions for global customers and delivers a simple and comprehensive way for merchants to offer payments and transactions to consumers in chat. Chat 2 Pay is purpose-built for the North American market, expanding Clickatell’s global customer base.

Clickatell’s Chat 2 Pay enables merchants to securely accept payments in chat messaging by sending consumers a payment link via SMS or WhatsApp. In its design of Chat 2 Pay, Clickatell efficiently has orchestrated the complex relationship between messaging, payments, or the order management system (OMS) of their customers, and in the process mitigates the risk of merchants managing payment card details. The functionality is so easy merchants simply switch it on and manage. Clickatell’s own data shows using the chat channel for interactions and transactions reduces the overall cost of doing business while increasing customer engagement.

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“Brands can now improve their customer service with Chat 2 Pay by providing a more convenient and secure way to make payments in chat messaging,” said Pieter de Villiers, CEO and Co-Founder at Clickatell. “Chat 2 Pay addresses today’s boom worldwide in digital payments – a shift in consumer behavior and response to the impact of the pandemic. It also helps address consumers’ physical proximity concerns, while reducing fraud. Chat 2 Pay delivers a secure, frictionless, and contact free checkout—with no need to hand credit cards to merchants or read card details over the phone.”

In its report “Drive Revenue and Customer Satisfaction by Building Trust,” Gartner® states “Not only is an organization’s trustworthiness measured by its people, it is also measured by its processes and the technologies it deploys. All agents can help or hinder the building of customer confidence and trust and negate millions of investments in people, process and technology.” Additionally, Gartner’s report “Predicts 2021: CRM Customer Service and Support,” projects that “by 2025, 80% of customer service organizations will have abandoned native mobile apps in favor of messaging for a better customer experience.”

“As chat commerce accelerates, we are innovating to create payment systems like Chat 2 Pay where all brands no matter the size may accept payments in the chat channels consumers have come to love, trust, and use every day,” de Villiers said. “By taking the payment capabilities brands have on their websites, apps, and in their call centers, and making them available via chat, simpler payments will further drive adoption of this low-cost, efficient channel for interactions and transactions.”

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The Clickatell Chat 2 Pay solution provides a pay-by-link capability, empowering brands to request and facilitate payments in three easy steps:

1. A merchant’s customer service or sales representative triggers a payment request from a standard CRM or order management system (OMS) and sends it to the customer as a link.
2. The customer receives a secure payment link via SMS or WhatsApp. When clicking on the link, it directs the customer to a hosted, responsive checkout page.
3. A customer then completes details and submits a payment receiving an order confirmation and receipt via chat.

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