* Updated March 2023

More consumers have come to expect value-added services (VAS) from retailers, banks and telcos, so it’s important to deliver a good experience to both retain and grow your customer base. Here’s how preferential routing can help foster customer loyalty. As smartphone penetration has increased, more digital outlets have started to offer VAS in order to boost revenue and remain competitive. This means that customers have more choice about where and when they purchase their digital goods and services. To encourage loyalty, you have to offer a seamless transaction experience by making sure that your systems are always up and running, and the customer can access what they need, when they need it. 

Electrum’s preferential routing is a functionality that can help you achieve this. Here’s how it works and the benefits it offers. 

How preferential routing benefits you and your customers

A key benefit of working with a technology partner like Electrum is that you get access to multiple providers and aggregators through a single integration point. This not only gives you a wider selection of products, but also opens up opportunities for optimising the commercial agreements with your suppliers. Where two or more providers offer the same product, our preferential routing feature allows you to select which provider offers the most attractive commissions.

As well as boosting revenue across your digital goods and services portfolio, this flexibility can help you strengthen customer relationships in multiple ways:

• Offer the best value for money: With the ability to cherry-pick different providers for different services, you can offer customers the most affordable price for each of your offerings. For example, you can configure your routing to use Provider A for fixed-value mobile data bundles, and Provider B for variable prepaid airtime because they offer better value for that service than Provider A.
• Ensure customers never leave empty-handed: preferential routing makes use of load balancing and automatic failover to connect you to providers in order of preference. This helps avoid outages because if your first-choice goes down, the purchase request will automatically be routed to your second-choice provider, and so on. The same applies to certain products - such as PIN-based vouchers – which are available in limited quantities and hence may be out of stock at the preferred provider. 
• Avoid wait time: Customers spend less time in queues because automatic routing between different providers means that there are fewer retries. Getting their goods to them faster leads to increased satisfaction and a higher chance that they’ll use your service again. 
  
  

In an increasingly competitive market, providing the best experience for your customers is key. If your VAS portfolio is important for your business’s strategy and you’d like to learn more about preferential routing, get in touch to set up a demo!