Customer experience and customer loyalty: the importance of SCA (strong authentication)

The
customer experience is the key to customer loyalty.
Ensuring exclusive and quality experiences, supporting and accompanying consumers throughout their purchase journey and throughout their entire relationship with the brand, is becoming increasingly relevant for businesses. According to “The State of Commerce in Europe 2023” research conducted by Signifyd, a leading protection company for digital commerce, Italians were found to be inclined to abandon a brand after a negative experience. As many as 76% said they would switch to another website, while 58% would completely abandon a merchant who did not meet their expectations.

The customer experience is therefore a key element in fostering brand loyalty

, especially when it comes to online shopping.

The experience must be distinctive, immersive and personalized: in fact, a consumer can range among multiple alternatives in an ever-increasing commercial landscape, and for this very reason he or she will choose that product or service offered by a company that shows itself to be attentive to the consumer’s specific needs, that gives him or her the best attention, that panders to his or her requests, and that supports throughout the entire customer journey, not only at the time of actual purchase. One in two Italians were discouraged when making an online purchase and did not complete their purchase due to problems encountered with Strong Customer Authentication (SCA).

Italian consumers greatly appreciate
by far the ability to return the product for free
. Free returns affect as many as 72 percent of the sample versus 14 percent who prefer immediate refunds. It should also be specified that 77% of Italians would hesitate to purchase a product or service from a brand that charges additional fees for returns. A good return experience wins the favor of 79% of Italians, and 61% said they would stop using a company if they had a bad return experience.

Retailers, according to the report, must excel primarily in four areas: the transformation of online payments, the aforementioned Return estimation, international expansion in unreached markets, the new landscape of the strong customer authentication and all its effects (i.e., strengthening the security of security systems, making it not only efficient but also user friendly).

The Strong Client Authentication (in English Strong Customer Authentication, hence the acronym SCA) is a procedure that allows us to Validate the identification of a user based on the use of two or more authentication elements Belonging to at least two categories from the following: knowledge (i.e., a password or PIN, of which only the user is precisely aware), possession (i.e. something that only the user owns, such as a cell phone), Inherence (i.e., something that characterizes the user, such as fingerprint or facial recognition). These elements must be independent of each other, so that the possible violation of one of them does not compromise the reliability of the others.

The customer authentication procedure through SCA is. preparatory to the authorization of an online payment: based on the credentials entered, a single-use authorization code is generated, inextricably linked to the amount and the payee (so if it is stolen or intercepted, it cannot be used for other payments). Strong Customer Authentication is therefore a technical solution that enables fraud to be thwarted, theft, loss, and makes it more difficult for individuals other than the legitimate cardholder to use the card.

Making the SCA unobtrusive, functional, and well embedded in context is key to improving the customer experience
, not make user interaction with the brand complicated, and ensure consumer loyalty in the long run.