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Education

The value of data: how APIs she wears many hats, spends most of
the day in a customer-facing role, and
are transforming payments works long hours with few (if any)
staff as support. So, how does a local
merchant obtain the customer data
By Connie Spencer-Adams needed to run CRM software and
inform marketing or customer reten-
Womply tion efforts when they spend all day
trying to serve their customers and
he information age, which dawned in the 1970s and permeates all run a business? The short answer is
aspects of commerce today, has taught us the value and power of they can't.
data. In an economy based primarily on information technology, the
T impact and value of information can not be overestimated. However, At Womply, we call this the "zero data
there is a major problem for payments companies, processors, ISOs, and their problem." It boils down to this: most
associated merchant level salespeople (MLSs) and merchants: an enormous merchants don't know their custom-
portion of information and data resources is compartmentalized, unused and ers' names, let alone their contact in-
unavailable. formation or other useful customer
data. If you don't have data, you can't
This can be the result of proprietary technology, incompatibility with other effectively use CRM or business ana-
resources, or a reluctance or inability to make this hugely valuable information lytics software or develop effective
more generally available, profitable, and useful across diverse platforms and marketing campaigns – and you're
firms. at a major disadvantage in attract-

The 'zero-data problem' for merchants and processors ing, retaining and satisfying custom-
ers, as well as generating revenue for
Merchants, particularly the smaller, local merchants that are the MLS's bread merchant service providers and pro-
and butter, are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to business and cus- cessors.
tomer information. Think about the average day for a small merchant. He or
What's more, even if every small
business were given a free Sales-
force license, most of them wouldn't
be able to use it because most simply
don't have the information neces-
sary to populate it. They don't keep a
thorough list of customers, don't have
the tools or knowledge to track cus-
tomer interactions, and can't append
important data points like spending
patterns or contact information. How
can you improve if you can't measure
the impact of your price, product or
marketing decisions?

However, this data conundrum is not
exclusive to small, local merchants.
Even large, enterprise-level firms –
and payments companies themselves
– suffer from a similar problem: their
data is frequently insulated, compart-
mentalized, incompatible across plat-
forms, and of questionable accuracy
without expensive outside validation
and integration. This is where APIs
come in.

How APIs are revolutionizing
the payments industry

If you aren't familiar with the term
"API" yet, you will be soon. An ap-
plication program interface (API) is
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