When it comes to ordering food online, customer engagement is crucial. The industry is driven by extraordinary experiences and convenience, and loyalty drives revenue. To build these meaningful and lasting customer relationships, the right platform is needed. Everything a restaurant needs to manage online ordering has to be available directly within the platform and in keeping with the restaurants brand identify.
That is the mission behind Smooth Commerce - to empower everyone's local businesses with the most comprehensive and dynamic digital Commerce and engagement solution in the marketplace. By creating customer-centric user experiences for their clients, they "lift" average basket size and revenue, "shift" customers to their platform from higher-cost third-party marketplaces, and help them "thrive" by providing support to help clients fully realize the potential of their white-label platform. To power these unbeatable experiences, they needed a payment partner to take their solution to the next level.
Smooth Commerce, based in Toronto, Ontario, opened for business in 2015. They grew fast, with their solution now powering digital ordering for many independent restaurants and large chains and franchises such as Denny's Canada and Mary Brown's Chicken. Smooth Commerce has stuck to its mission of offering engaging, brandable digital experiences to clients across North America from the start and into the future.
In 2017, Smooth Commerce partnered with Worldline. Worldline, a payment provider based in North America with decades of experience in the industry, had the scalability and services that Smooth Commerce was looking for. Together, the partners worked to create a seamless payment experience within Smooth Commerce's platform.
Key features of the Smooth Commerce & Worldline partnership
Speed of onboarding
When it comes to food services, timing is everything. Businesses need to get up and running fast, so they don't miss out on revenue. For Smooth Commerce's clients, getting set up with everything they need to accept payments is a breeze. The entire payments onboarding process can be done online in a matter of minutes.
An inclusive payment gateway
Smooth Commerce's platform is used by a variety of customers, from independent restaurants and retailers to large national chains. To suit such a diverse clientele base, Smooth Commerce needed a payment gateway to connect to any business, no matter who their banking partner is. Through Worldline's bank agnostic gateway, Smooth Commerce can support any client with virtually any acquiring bank in North America.
An added benefit is that clients can easily switch from one acquirer to another. For those with multiple franchises or locations through different acquirers, one integration can connect them all.
"Our partnership with Worldline was instrumental," said Brian Deck, CEO of Smooth Commerce. "It allowed us to provide the kind of ease of use and flexibility for our clients to work with their existing payment acquirer and enabled us to be agnostic in the payment industry. We pride ourselves on providing our customers with the peace of mind that customer payment information is secure during every transaction."
Payment types and flexibility
One thing online businesses never want to see is an abandoned checkout. Smooth Commerce offers its clients the flexibility to accept the payment types that matter, making it less likely consumers will abandon their order. Credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets are the most common ways people want to pay online. The ability to accept those payment types means businesses won't lose out on orders because the preferred payment type isn't available.
Smooth Commerce is also able to provide flexibility to their clients through pricing. In the payments industry, fees are always changing. Worldline and Smooth Commerce work together to ensure customers have an affordable pricing plan that makes sense for their business.
Protecting businesses from fraud
Fraudsters are always on the lookout for ways to steal confidential payment information during the payment process. With Worldline's tokenization service, Smooth Commerce can ensure payments are processed for their customers in the safest way possible. Tokenization takes payment data and encrypts it into a token, making it unrecognizable to hackers.
For Smooth Commerce's clients, extra protection measures are also in place during the checkout, ensuring the one paying for the food is the one enjoying it. Tools such as Address Verification Services (AVS) and Card Verification Value (CVV) ensure that the person ordering knows the billing and card details, adding security for consumers and protecting restaurants from chargebacks.
An enduring partnership
Smooth Commerce continues to adapt to meet the new demands of an ever-changing market. As digital ordering increases in popularity, the flexibility and breadth of Smooth Commerce's platform becomes the powering force for a wide variety of clients.
Worldline continues to support Smooth Commerce as they grow with scalable payment solutions. Together they make sure the platform is equipped with the latest payment services their customers need.
As COVID-19 continues to force businesses to operate almost exclusively online, Smooth Commerce and Worldline have worked together to bring businesses the benefits of adopting a digital ordering and payment solution. See how Smooth Commerce and Worldline have responded to COVID-19 here.