How Safe-Pay works
Safe-Pay enables agents to take a payment and process refunds from a customer while on a call (or while handling a chat or an email) by sending a payment link to the customer. The customer then securely enters their details through the payment processing system with which the company is registered and the Contact receives the transaction result.
| Ready to get set up? Find help configuring Safe-Pay in the Configuring Safe-Pay article. |
Safe-Pay: Step by Step
During the conversation, the agent and the customer agree that a payment needs to be made. This could be:
- The customer needs to pay the company for a service or merchandise
- The agent needs to refund or pay the customer for something
To take a payment the agent will either click ‘Receive’, ‘Refund’ or ‘Pay’ under Payment in the right-hand side panel.
The new payment item will be created and will be placed in a payment queue in the agent’s inbox with the status set to “active”. The agent’s status is set to “handling payment” if they are not handling a call.
| Note: If more than one payment queue has been defined, a list of payment queues is displayed from which the agent can select a queue. If the agent is only a member of one payment queue, that queue is selected automatically. |
A payment form will be displayed in the centre panel of the interface and the agent will enter the details of the payment into the form. Once the form is ready the agent will select email or SMS delivery and will click the Generate Payment button and if the request is successful a payment link will be generated and sent to the customer. If needed the agent can generate a passcode which the customer will need to enter to access the payment screen.
| Note: If an agent uses SMS to send a payment link, they will be charged for it at their normal SMS rate. |
The customer will receive the link (either by email or SMS). The link will open in the web browser and the customer will be able to fill in their card details. If a passcode is required the agent will send this to the customer via a different channel to the one used for sending the payment link.
As the customer enters their details Contact will start receiving payment status updates from the payment processing system. This will update on the agent’s screen so the agent can watch how the transaction is progressing and help the customer with the process where necessary.
Once the customer completes the payment the status in the agent’s inbox will update and the payment will be complete. The result of the transaction is displayed until the agent clears it from the queue.
| Note: The cardholder’s card details are strictly between the customer and the payment processing system. The agent cannot view this information. All that Contact knows is how far the payment is progressing and whether or not it is successful. |
Additional Information
For an extra level of security, agents can choose to generate a passcode that the customer will need to enter before completing the payment.
- The passcode will be displayed to the agent after the payment link is generated
- The agent will send the passcode to the customer via a different channel to the one used to send the payment link. For example, if the agent sent the payment link to the customer via email, the passcode might be sent via SMS or read out over the phone.
If the customer receives the payment link while on a chat or in an email conversation (rather than a call) with the agent and they phone in about it, the agent can bring up a list of transactions, select the appropriate transaction and display it.