Well, there are a couple of big ways you can really screw up your ecommerce integration. From not incorporating your CRM and ERP systems to ignoring impacts on your company’s tax nexus, there is a list of mistakes you can avoid by being prepared.

We’re here to help remind you of some of the top concerns to address before you move to a new ecommerce provider. Bring this check list to the next meeting with potential vendors and walk through these points with them to ensure a seamless transition.

Integration Points

Address all possible connection points between your internal systems and your new ecommerce platform to make sure everything aligns. Otherwise, minor issues like foreign currencies, orders delays or entitlement allocation could turn into major problems.

1. Guarantee complete integration of your CRM/ERP systems
   This is a big one! Your new ecommerce platform should work effortlessly to notify your master customer database of each transaction, or else your database is worthless. Be sure to map ERP-listed SKUs to SKUs in your ecommerce platform to avoid selling products that do not appear in your accounting system.
2. Confirm entitlement allocation and validation
   Make sure entitlement is granted to customers when they buy your product. Discuss options for customer validation in situations where only certain customers are qualified to buy specific products like upgrades.
3. Have a single sign-on
   Customers should never know they are logged into any system except yours. Should customers need to log into an account on your site to check for information hosted by your ecommerce provider, they should be able to access any information pertaining to their orders without leaving your site.
4. Determine who will host data files
   Determine which Content Delivery Network (CDN) to use, and explore any impact on your company’s tax nexus. Any reputable ecommerce company will offer an extensive list of APIs to address these typical, but sometimes complex issues. So make sure these items are on the table for discussion.

After you’ve tackled the integration pitfalls, walk through these trouble spots with your new provider to work out any issues ahead of time:

5. Create a flawless user experience
   Your web page branding should be consistent across your hosted pages and your ecommerce providers. Don’t forget to confirm your custom domains, and make sure customer specific data is passed to pre-filled carts.
6. Prepare your systems for any new data
   Orders that come from countries such as Japan and China include double-byte characters, which require more data storage than Western character sets like ASCII. If your internal systems are not prepared, your database may not capture this information properly, or at all, causing discrepancies later.
7. Plan for order delays
   Discuss your strategy to handle orders that are not received, which could be due to a variety of reasons, including:
   • Temporary Internet outages
   • An unfamiliar format
   • Planned maintenance
8. Don’t forget about resellers and affiliates
   Whether you heavily rely on resellers and affiliates or you are looking to do so in the future, it’s important that you have a system in place for these partners to use. A great ecommerce provider will be able to support and improve communication with your partners. Do not forget to ask your new provider to explain how this process works in their system.
9. Integrate the full-range of analytics
   To gather a 360-degree view of your ecommerce you need to track customers’ complete purchase cycle. Make sure your provider tracks customers when they leave your hosted pages and are transferred to the ecommerce platform pages.
10. Adjust accounting for new currencies
    You want customers from across the globe to buy your products in their native currency. If your new ecommerce provider offers new currencies, make sure you adjust your accounting system to reflect the additions. Stay on top of this topic as your provider updates their platform to include more and more currencies.
11. Ensure great customer service
    Make your ecommerce provider aware of your particular customer service policies and procedures, such as handling refunds and chargebacks. World-class customer service is so important! To provide the best, have a mutual agreement on how you communicate with your customers.

This list should help you ask the right questions before implementation, so hopefully you spend less time on unexpected issues and more time optimizing your ecommerce – which is why you got a new provider to begin with, right? Good luck going live!

Keystone

Integration with a new ecommerce provider goes more smoothly if you address your concerns in advance.

The post Eleven Ways to NOT Botch Your Ecommerce Integration appeared first on cleverbridge.

Whether you sell software, subscription products or access to content, it’s important to address all the possible communication points between your corporate enterprise systems and the e-commerce platform.

Otherwise, minor points like foreign currencies, orders waiting for payment or Internet outages may turn into major production problems.

Whether you have built your e-commerce infrastructure in-house or have been using an out-sourced partner, implementing a new, state-of-the-art e-commerce platform requires a lot of thought.

Here are a list of important integration points that you should make sure to discuss with any potential e-commerce partners:

• CRM/ERP integration – Informing master customer database of each transaction
• Entitlement allocation – Customer buys your product and needs entitlement granted
• Seamless user experience – Web page branding, custom domains, customer specific data passed to pre-filled carts
• Entitlement validation – Qualify customer to buy specific product
• Single sign-on – Customer logged in to each system simultaneously, your side should be the the master and your e-commerce provider the slave
• Hosting of data files – Whose Content Delivery Network (CDN) to use, impact on tax nexus

To go into detail about the above items would be too much to cover in one blog post. However, any reputable out-sourced e-commerce company will offer an extensive list of APIs to address these typical, but sometimes complex issues. So make sure these items are on the table for discussion.

After you have tackled the integration points, it’s important to talk to your potential e-commerce provider about the following hidden trouble spots that you may encounter when completing your integration:

• Delayed access to delivering or receiving real-time purchase notifications– If you are receiving order data from your e-commerce platform following each transaction, you need to have a plan to handle orders that are:
  • Not received due to temporary internet outages
  • Received in an unfamiliar format
  • Not received due to planned maintenance

• Lack of double-byte enabled systems – Orders that come from countries such as Japan, China and Russia include (if your e-commerce system allows it) double-byte characters, which require more data storage than Western character sets like ASCII. If your internal systems are not prepared, the data sent may not be captured properly or at all in your database, causing inconsistencies later.
• Analytics integration – Make sure your e-commerce provider is tracking customers once they leave your hosted pages and are transferred to the e-commerce platform pages. Not doing so results in a lack of visibility into the full customer purchase process.
• Accounting system currency reconciliation – Moving from an in-house system to a globally focused e-commerce platform usually entails exposure to more currencies than you may have supported initially. Find a way to allow customers to pay for your product in their local currency that also supports automated input into your accounting system so that you don’t dilute the benefit of accepting more currencies.
• SKUs in ERP system – Many ERP systems are configured with specific SKUs for your products that are not as flexible as some external systems. Be sure to map ERP-listed SKUs to your e-commerce platform SKUs to avoid products selling in production, but not appearing in your accounting system.
• Resellers and affiliates – Selling via resellers or affiliates requires detailed communication to ensure that your partners are familiar with and comfortable using your new e-commerce platform. Make sure that you plan a migration path with your new e-commerce provider.
• Customer service policies – Procedures handling daily processes like refunds, chargebacks, underpayments and other customer issues need to be communicated to your partner to ensure a common message is provided to all customers. Great customer service is a real differentiator – don’t ruin your reputation by not preparing in advance!

Embarking on a new e-commerce platform selection project is a daunting task. And the work doesn’t end once the selection is made – the real risk begins when it’s time to align your internal systems with your new e-commerce platform.

More time spent planning for the implementation (and asking the right questions) will result in fewer unforeseen circumstances in spite of the additional time required to reach go live status.

Using the right tools is critical to a successful result in such a large project. Here are some tools that can help you better prepare:

• Flow chart software to draw use case scenarios and process flow charts
• Project management software to identify task owners and visualize dependencies
• Dedicated sandbox testing environments that don’t impact existing production systems with unstable programs and procedures

With the discussion topics above and these tools to help you get organized, you won’t miss a beat during your e-commerce outsourcing project.

Keystone

When implementing a new e-commerce platform, the more planning you do in advance, the fewer errors you’ll have when flipping the “go live” switch.

What kinds of tools have you used to help you?  Any little gremlins that you never think of that always pops up when going live?

The post Tips and Tools for a Successful Ecommerce Integration appeared first on cleverbridge.

• A unified view of your data in a matter of hours (not weeks)
• Integration of the tools you rely on today (such as Salesforce) with our ecommerce platform
• Freedom from the burden of building and supporting custom-coded integrations
• Simplicity and cost savings associated with connecting disparate systems
• Automated processes, reducing human error

For more information on Integration Services, click here. Read on for our latest blog post on customer retention!

Acquiring new customers is costly, so companies need to hang on tightly to existing ones. This can be hard work, but comes with a major payoff: even a small increase in customer retention can significantly raise profits. And you’ve probably got many of the tools you need for the task already.

All it takes is a little creative thinking …

Consider your CRM. Like most of us, you probably use a CRM solution like Salesforce to close and nurture new customers. But that CRM can also be a valuable tool for increasing your customer lifespan after that initial purchase.

Read on for a few simple ways that your team can use its CRM to improve customer retention.

1. Centralize all your customer data in one place

Disparate departments rely on each other now more than ever. How a Customer Support Rep processes a return may dictate whether the transaction is included in the Controller’s revenue recognition or whether a Sales Rep is notified to follow up with a personalized offer. Historically, these teams (and their data) have been disconnected.

But these data sources can easily be integrated, with your CRM acting as a central hub.

Here’s an example: say your Marketing team uses Marketo, your Sales team uses Salesforce and your Customer Service team uses Zendesk. You can integrate Marketo and Zendesk with Salesforce to add their respective data to each customer’s contact record in Salesforce, effectively creating a unified view of every customer.

This creates new opportunities for automation and delivers transparency through the entire sales funnel. Everyone’s on the same page – and you can be that much more effective at customer retention.

2. Personalize customer communications

Countless customer touch points are stored within your key information systems, including your marketing automation platform, analytics platforms, your ERP and even EPM systems. In the course of your relationships with your customers, you’ve probably gathered quite a lot of valuable data. But how to apply it?

Here’s one thought: by integrating all that data into your instance of Salesforce or other CRM, you can personalize communication to resonate better with customers. Personalizing is an easy way to make your customers feel special.

Add the activity tracked by other analytics tools such as search history to those customers’ contact records in your CRM. Armed with this info, your Sales and Marketing teams can customize bespoke emails and other forms of outreach based on customer preferences and behaviors.

This is a great experience for the customer. Why? Because they know if they open an email from you, they’ll receive offers tailored to their interests.

3. Monitor customer interaction

Real-time data is critical when delivering valuable customer communication. And it’s especially important if you want to increase the value of your relationships. If a customer hasn’t made a purchase or accessed any of your content in months, you’re at a high risk of losing them. Use your CRM to stay alert and keep customers coming back.

Nurture and reignite those relationships by setting up CRM notifications to alert you when a customer is interacting with your website or product. Sales reps can then reconnect with or extend offers, making the buying experience more targeted, timely and streamlined.

As an added bonus, many analytics tools, such as HubSpot and Kissmetrics, integrate with popular CRMs to deliver even richer customer behavior insights.

4. Re-engage your inactive customers

Inactive customers represent a huge opportunity. Though it might seem counter-intuitive, customers that have cancelled your service or haven’t shown activity in some time are still more likely to purchase than net new prospects who don’t know your business or brand.

Writing inactive or cancelled customers off as lost forever is foolish.

You are likely sitting on a sizable list size of inactive customers. Connect your CRM with your marketing automation tool or email platform and export that list as its own segment for future outreach and special offers. For example, our Marketing team integrates our Eloqua instance with Salesforce to reconnect with inactive customers.

Keystone

A business that wants to move fast and increase revenue needs real-time access to the data that powers it. And customer retention is an area where enhancing the flow of that data can deliver big wins.

Make it easier by using your CRM as a unified data source to personalize customer communication, track customer interaction, and engage with inactive customers. Remember: understanding and responding to customer behavior can make or break a long-lasting customer relationship – and one of the best tools for the job is right in front of you.

One final caveat: integrating your CRM with other business systems on your own can be complex, costly and time consuming. We recommend streamlining all of this by using a data integration service that removes this burden – freeing you to focus on customer retention strategies.

Andrea Bailiff-Gush is the Product Marketing Manager at cleverbridge

The post Four Simple Ways to Boost Customer Retention With Your CRM appeared first on cleverbridge.

It’s virtually impossible for digital companies to handle every aspect of billing and payment in-house, so finding the right solutions provider is crucial to growing your revenue while lowering total costs to your business. You have some choices to make as far as this is concerned: You can use point solutions that address each piece of the puzzle individually or find more robust solutions that provide a cohesive ecosystem of tools that help you reach your goals.

To give you some context for some of the costs you might not expect in the area of billing and payments, we wanted to focus on the payment processing capabilities required to grow online revenue and the development resources needed to make sure everything is functioning smoothly.

Payment Processing: Important Considerations

Merchant of Record (MoR)

Managing relationships with payment processors, submitting associated credit card fees, and handling other administrative tasks around processing online transactions all have legal implications that, by default, fall on your business’s plate. Not all vendors will assume responsibility on your behalf as your merchant of record (MoR). To avoid significant fines, you would need to comply with PCI DSS standards and calculate, collect and remit taxes to relevant authorities.

Currencies and Payment Methods

To sell effectively in any market, you need to support your customers’ preferred currencies and payment methods. It’s just as important to not display any type of payment method that is irrelevant to that customer. It makes for a poor customer experience, and our data proves that offering only relevant payment methods raises conversion rates, even when those payments aren’t ultimately chosen by customers.

Relationships With Merchant Banks and Payment Service Providers (PSPs)

Negotiating and maintaining relationships with multiple entities can get complicated and expensive. And unlike a billing provider that has already has these relationships in place, you’ll need to build yours from scratch.

Country-Specific Payment Legislation

Some countries have passed laws that prevent money from leaving their borders. For example, in Brazil, your business can’t accept Brazilian real unless you have a processor and entity located within the country. If your legal business address is located anywhere governed by EU legislation, you are required to display an order confirmation page for your customers before they complete checkout. Because this is yet another opportunity for your European customers to abandon their cart, being aware of this page and optimizing it is critical for maximizing revenue.

Takeaway

A billing provider that acts as your merchant of record will manage your relationships with multiple merchant banks and PSPs as well as record and reconcile all of your transaction data. And because that provider has multiple clients, their transaction volume is much higher than yours. This means your business benefits from lower fees from PSPs. They’ll also support a plethora of regional payment methods and currencies, which you’ll require in order to optimize pricing for new markets.

Development and Integration: Important Considerations

Developer Resource Management

Will developers who are always busy with billing tasks have time to work on advancing your core service? It’s not likely, and your business could end up in the unfortunate position of having to delay improvements to your offering because billing takes up too much bandwidth. Or vice versa, you miss out on a lot of revenue opportunities because you don’t have the developer resources to implement or maintain your current billing solution.

Integration With Existing Business Systems

Consolidating customer data from your CRM, ERP, email platform and web analytics with your billing solution is necessary for a holistic look at your business performance — but it’s a complex development effort. As you research options for providers, make sure you understand how easily those providers integrate with your existing systems and what level of support they provide.

Transmitting Customer Data

There are serious risks with transmitting customer data between platforms, and your development team needs to know how to comply with ever-changing global privacy regulations. For example, do you support social sharing? If so, you should know that in August 2011, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) mandated the removal of post-purchase social sharing for online purchases in the EU. The very thing that increases customer acquisition in the U.S. can actually cost your business €50,000 in Europe!

Expansion Into New Markets

In order to grow your business, you need development resources focused not only on your current ecommerce efforts but also on global expansion. Each new market has its own set of regional specifications that require custom development.

Takeaway

In addition to freeing up developers to work on your core offering, a billing provider should be able to achieve full integration with your systems in a matter of weeks, rapidly accelerating your time-to-market. They will also process orders quickly (providing a positive customer experience) and securely transmit data in accordance with global privacy regulations.

To learn more about the hidden costs of global billing, check out our interactive microsite.

The post What Are Some of the Hidden Costs of Billing and Payments? appeared first on cleverbridge.

It’s virtually impossible for digital companies to handle every aspect of billing and payment in-house, so finding the right solutions provider is crucial to growing your revenue while lowering total costs to your business. You have some choices to make as far as this is concerned: You can use point solutions that address each piece of the puzzle individually or find more robust solutions that provide a cohesive ecosystem of tools that help you reach your goals.

To give you some context for some of the costs you might not expect in the area of billing and payments, we wanted to focus on the payment processing capabilities required to grow online revenue and the development resources needed to make sure everything is functioning smoothly.

Payment Processing: Important Considerations

Merchant of Record (MoR)

Managing relationships with payment processors, submitting associated credit card fees, and handling other administrative tasks around processing online transactions all have legal implications that, by default, fall on your business’s plate. Not all vendors will assume responsibility on your behalf as your merchant of record (MoR). To avoid significant fines, you would need to comply with PCI DSS standards and calculate, collect and remit taxes to relevant authorities.

Currencies and Payment Methods

To sell effectively in any market, you need to support your customers’ preferred currencies and payment methods. It’s just as important to not display any type of payment method that is irrelevant to that customer. It makes for a poor customer experience, and our data proves that offering only relevant payment methods raises conversion rates, even when those payments aren’t ultimately chosen by customers.

Relationships With Merchant Banks and Payment Service Providers (PSPs)

Negotiating and maintaining relationships with multiple entities can get complicated and expensive. And unlike a billing provider that has already has these relationships in place, you’ll need to build yours from scratch.

Country-Specific Payment Legislation

Some countries have passed laws that prevent money from leaving their borders. For example, in Brazil, your business can’t accept Brazilian real unless you have a processor and entity located within the country. If your legal business address is located anywhere governed by EU legislation, you are required to display an order confirmation page for your customers before they complete checkout. Because this is yet another opportunity for your European customers to abandon their cart, being aware of this page and optimizing it is critical for maximizing revenue.

Takeaway

A billing provider that acts as your merchant of record will manage your relationships with multiple merchant banks and PSPs as well as record and reconcile all of your transaction data. And because that provider has multiple clients, their transaction volume is much higher than yours. This means your business benefits from lower fees from PSPs. They’ll also support a plethora of regional payment methods and currencies, which you’ll require in order to optimize pricing for new markets.

Development and Integration: Important Considerations

Developer Resource Management

Will developers who are always busy with billing tasks have time to work on advancing your core service? It’s not likely, and your business could end up in the unfortunate position of having to delay improvements to your offering because billing takes up too much bandwidth. Or vice versa, you miss out on a lot of revenue opportunities because you don’t have the developer resources to implement or maintain your current billing solution.

Integration With Existing Business Systems

Consolidating customer data from your CRM, ERP, email platform and web analytics with your billing solution is necessary for a holistic look at your business performance — but it’s a complex development effort. As you research options for providers, make sure you understand how easily those providers integrate with your existing systems and what level of support they provide.

Transmitting Customer Data

There are serious risks with transmitting customer data between platforms, and your development team needs to know how to comply with ever-changing global privacy regulations. For example, do you support social sharing? If so, you should know that in August 2011, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) mandated the removal of post-purchase social sharing for online purchases in the EU. The very thing that increases customer acquisition in the U.S. can actually cost your business €50,000 in Europe!

Expansion Into New Markets

In order to grow your business, you need development resources focused not only on your current ecommerce efforts but also on global expansion. Each new market has its own set of regional specifications that require custom development.

Takeaway

In addition to freeing up developers to work on your core offering, a billing provider should be able to achieve full integration with your systems in a matter of weeks, rapidly accelerating your time-to-market. They will also process orders quickly (providing a positive customer experience) and securely transmit data in accordance with global privacy regulations.

To learn more about the hidden costs of global billing, check out our interactive microsite.

The post What Are Some of the Hidden Costs of Billing and Payments? appeared first on cleverbridge.