Even if a customer has gone through all the conversion funnel stages, they can bounce at checkout. An overly long registration, inconvenient forms, or website glitches make people leave your store without completing the purchase. They instantly find a similar product on another resource and go there to buy what they intended to buy from you.

There are multiple reasons behind high customer bounce rates. This time, we’re going to focus on poor data verification as one of them.

Sharing their billing address during the checkout, customers expect a smooth address verification process and instant response. It must take several seconds (or less) to run a check with an AVS system and accept or reject transactions. The optimized address verification process enables customers to quickly place an order, whereas merchants enjoy improved customer experience and security.

To learn more about what an AVS check is and how to implement the billing address verification process, read about:

• What is an AVS check?
• How does an AVS system work, and why do you need it?
• How to ensure a seamless checkout experience for your customers
• Address autocomplete and address verification process with Inkit.

What Is an AVS Check?

An AVS check is when an AVS system verifies the buyer’s billing address to confirm the credit card ownership. If the billing address of the person who places an order and the address of the credit card owner match, the transaction is considered safe. AVS checks are used for Card Not Present (CNP) transactions, when a buyer cannot physically provide their credit cards or debit cards and, hence, the risk of fraud is high.

The address verification process happens automatically and is not visible to the customer. The buyer just sees that the transaction is approved or rejected and continues with the next steps depending on the outcome.

To learn more about the difference between AVS system checks and the USPS street address verification process, read this blog post.

How Does an AVS System Work and Why Do You Need It?

To better understand what an AVS check is, you should know how it works. Below are the main stages of an AVS system check:

1. Imagine a customer visits an online store. They browse the pages, add selected products to the cart, and proceed with the checkout. They can either use the saved payment information or enter the billing address at the checkout page once again. As soon as the website connected to the address verification service (AVS) captures billing information, the payment gateway transmits it to the credit card brand (e.g., Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover) for address matching.
2. The credit card companies send the received information to the credit card issuing bank. The bank compares the provided address with the billing address on file. All the processes are completed with the AVS system automatically.
3. The issuer returns the authorization status and AVS response code to the gateway of the website. Suppose the buyer’s address data doesn’t match the billing information in the credit card issuer’s database. In that case, the AVS system will generate an AVS code that indicates an AVS mismatch. Contrarily, when two billing addresses coincide, the AVS code indicates that the transaction can be authorized. AVS response codes serve as a guide for merchants that determine what to do with a transaction.

Although these stages may seem challenging, they happen without any actions on the merchant’s side. The website owner just needs to set up the payment gateway when launching a website and figure out an AVS check and how to use it. After the initial configuration, all accepted or rejected credit card transactions are handled automatically.

As to AVS system checks’ benefits, the main reason to use them is the optimized checkout procedure. Since everything happens automatically, customers don’t have to waste time waiting for you to process the transaction. On the flip side, you can feel safe about the orders they accept and significantly cut the number of chargebacks. AVS systems reduce the likelihood of fraud and related disputes which may be devastating for e-commerce businesses.

How to Ensure a Seamless Checkout Experience for Your Customers

The first thing you should do is to integrate the AVS system that supports key credit card processors. It will speed up the checkout process and protect your company from fraudulent activities. Generally, AVS checks are a must-have for all e-commerce businesses.

Still, there are some additional ways to optimize the checkout procedure and help the AVS system to run verification. Consider them for your company:

• Analyze customer behavior. If you want to detect what obstacles your customers face during the checkout, use software for customer behavior analysis. Such tools include click, scroll, and move heatmaps that reflect what people do on your website. Thanks to them, you will see when people abandon the payment page and find ways to keep them. For example, if you see that a specific navigation element confuses customers, you can remove it or add a helpful tip explaining how it works.
• Take care of website usability. To streamline the checkout process and enhance the customer experience at each stage of the conversion funnel, it’s crucial to have a quality website design. Engage UX/UI designers to make sure the web pages aren’t only good-looking but also convenient. These guys know how different design solutions affect the actions of users and can optimize your web resource.
• Implement address autocomplete on your website. To save customers’ time and effort, add address autocomplete. This feature instantly fixes the formatting of billing addresses while customers are typing the information. It enhances the quality of address input and allows you to collect accurate addresses from the very beginning. Besides, since users don’t have to type each letter manually, the customer experience also improves.
• Connect your CRM with address verification software. The automated address verification process is a great addition to address autocompletion. It allows you to make sure the standardized street addresses that enter your database are mailable. This additionally boosts your data security and the accuracy of order delivery. With the address verification process, you reduce the number of returned or undelivered orders and cut delivery expenses.

As you can see, to provide the checkout experience your customers deserve, you will need a lot of automation. You can either try to connect multiple tools or use a single full-featured platform. We offer you to consider Inkit for address autocomplete, address verification process, and supply channel optimization.

Address Autocomplete and Address Verification Process with Inkit

Inkit is a reach enablement platform that allows you to stay in touch with customers and vendors across multiple channels. It also optimizes the address autocomplete and address verification process to facilitate the checkout and improve data security.

Inkit smoothly connects with other tools, including CRMs, marketing, and analytics software, to fully automate your business processes. Once you integrate it with your systems, you will automatically capture and validate addresses, run AVS checks, and deliver trigger-based communications.

Want to learn more about the capabilities of Inkit? Contact us to request a demo or start a subscription.