The best AI payment experience might be one the customer barely notices.
A customer asks an AI assistant to settle an outstanding bill. The assistant confirms the amount, guides them through a secure payment and confirms the payment.
No unnecessary handovers. No starting again. Just a natural progression from conversation to completed transaction.
But behind that simple experience, AI payment integration relies on several systems working together.
So, what actually happens when an AI assistant helps a customer make a payment?
From customer request to authorised payment
Imagine a telecoms customer asking an AI assistant:
“Can I pay my £147.50 bill?”
The assistant confirms the outstanding amount, directs the customer to a secure payment process and receives the transaction outcome through the integration.
Behind the scenes, the payment journey could work like this:
- The assistant identifies the payment request
The assistant understands what the customer wants to do, retrieves the relevant billing information and confirms the amount.
- The integration starts the secure payment journey
Once the customer agrees to pay, the customer-facing application uses an integration with Encoded’s Gateway Services to initiate the appropriate payment process.
- Sensitive card details stay outside the AI conversation
Hosted Payment Fields or another secure payment flow handles card entry. The AI assistant doesn’t need to collect or process the customer’s card details. Keeping card data out of the conversation entirely is one of the simplest and most effective principles of AI payment security.
- Authentication happens where required
Additional authentication, such as 3D Secure, can take place as part of the payment process, depending on the transaction and applicable requirements.
- The transaction is routed for processing
Encoded’s payment orchestration capabilities can apply routing rules based on factors such as transaction cost, card type, geography and available acquiring options.
- The payment is sent for authorisation
The transaction is submitted through the selected payment provider for authorisation. The outcome is then returned through the payment integration.
- The assistant continues the conversation
With the payment result available to the customer-facing application, the assistant can confirm success or guide the customer through the next step if the payment is unsuccessful.
The customer experiences one connected journey. The business retains control over how payments are handled.
Why the payment route matters
The experience might look simple to the customer, but not every transaction should follow the same route.
Different acquirers can have different costs, capabilities and availability. Businesses operating across multiple markets may also need to account for local payment preferences, transaction risk and card types.
Encoded’s payment orchestration technology allows businesses to apply routing rules that reflect these requirements.
For example, a transaction could be directed towards a preferred acquirer based on the transaction’s geography or card type. If a provider becomes unavailable, configured routing options may allow the business to use an alternative.
This flexibility helps businesses manage payment performance and cost without adding complexity to the customer’s experience.
For more on the commercial benefits, read Why merchants are moving towards payment orchestration.
Your brand, your customer relationship
For software platforms and telecoms providers building AI-assisted customer journeys, integrating payments isn’t just a technical decision. It’s also about maintaining control of the customer experience.
Sending customers to an unrelated payment provider can interrupt the journey and weaken the connection with the brand they’ve chosen to use.
With Encoded’s white-label payment capabilities, platforms and telcos can offer payment functionality as part of their own customer proposition.
The business keeps its branding and customer relationship, while Encoded provides the underlying payment infrastructure.
For telcos in particular, this creates an opportunity to offer payment services to customers already using their communications platforms, rather than referring that activity elsewhere.
Read more in Why payments could be the next revenue opportunity for telcos.
Make the technology work behind the conversation
Customers shouldn’t need to understand payment gateways, acquiring relationships or transaction routing to settle a bill.
They simply want to pay and move on.
For businesses introducing AI into customer service, the goal is to connect that simple expectation with secure payment processing, appropriate authentication and flexible routing.
Acting as the AI payment gateway behind those integrations, Encoded’s Gateway Services provide access to more than 80 acquirers and gateways through a single API.
The customer sees a conversation that gets the job done. Behind it, every payment step has a purpose.
Make payments part of your AI customer journey
Explore how Encoded’s Gateway Services and payment orchestration technology could connect your AI-powered customer journeys with secure AI payment processing.
Discuss your AI payment integration with Encoded.
