In an exclusive conversation with Marketing In Asia (M.I.A), Priyanka Gargav, the Country Manager for Singapore and Head of Commercial for Southeast Asia & Hong Kong at Adyen, provided in-depth insights into Adyen’s role in enhancing visitor experiences at Mandai Wildlife Reserve.
Enhancing the Visitor Experience at Mandai Wildlife Reserve
Viewed through the eyes of a visitor, the experience at a place of interest isn’t confined to the physical presence at the location. Instead, it encompasses how and where they engage during their journey, and the payment process is a pivotal point in this interaction. It’s here that a simple browser transforms into a customer.
Acknowledging the importance of this transition, the Mandai Wildlife Group endeavored to modernize their payment processes, aiming to position themselves as a ‘smart zoo’. Traditionally, the Group depended on multiple payment providers for their online and offline transactions, leading to a disjointed assortment of payment methods. Such a fragmented system often complicated the experience for the users, with difficulties ranging from navigating non-responsive web pages to handling an array of payment terminals across various stores.
Receiving both local and international visitors, the Group’s wildlife parks aimed to streamline the purchasing experience for their diverse audience. The Group identified that their previous payment providers often lacked a wide variety of payment options, creating friction in the visitor’s experience. The convenience of a transaction, or the lack thereof, can significantly impact a visitor’s overall experience. Adyen’s recent Retail Report 2023 highlighted this, noting that 56% of local consumers would abandon their purchases if unable to use their preferred payment methods, be it in-store or online.
Introducing Adyen’s unified platform revolutionized the Group’s sales approach, unifying all sales channels and creating a consistent, seamless brand experience for the visitors. Now, a visitor’s payment experience at Mandai Wildlife Reserve is not just smooth, but also convenient. Whether purchasing tickets online ahead of their journey, using self-service checkout kiosks, mobile point-of-sale terminals for in-park add-on experiences such as animal feeding sessions, QR ordering at F&B outlets, or buying souvenirs at retail outlets, visitors can use their preferred payment methods, elevating their overall experience.
Facilitating Visitor Flows and a Seamless Experience
Adyen’s wider range of payment methods resulted in a seamless experience for visitors.
Today, here’s how a payment experience would look like for visitors of the Mandai Wildlife Reserve: buying tickets online before they even board a plane to Singapore, through using self-service checkout kiosks, mobile point-of-sale terminals to purchase additional in-park add-on experiences like animal feeding sessions, QR ordering at F&B outlets, to buying souvenirs in retail outlets, all using their preferred payment methods.
Gargav
Building a Comprehensive Understanding of Visitors
Adyen’s single platform allowed the Group to have a holistic overview of their visitors’ journey. This was key in identifying spending patterns across different consumer groups, thereby allowing the Group to tailor specific marketing efforts for a better customer experience.
Take for instance, the task of understanding tourists of a certain demographic/country. Tourists are less likely to have signed up for memberships with the Group, making it more of a challenge for the Group to understand their past spending habits at the parks, if any. However, by spotting trends from historical transactional data (payments made by tourists with cards issued by the target country), they can pinpoint habits unique to that specific audience and tailor their outbound marketing efforts accordingly. It would have been a gargantuan task in the past, when payments data was fragmented.
These insights can be used to inform the Group’s decisions when it comes to marketing to specific visitor segments.
Gargav
Mitigating Potential Payment Fraud Risks
Adyen’s proactive approach to fraud risks ensures secure transactions for visitors. Gargav highlighted, “We take a proactive approach by helping our customers detect, prevent and respond to fraud through the combination of static risk rules and machine learning. We call our risk management solution RevenueProtect, which is a built-in toolkit for businesses processing payments with us.”
Adyen: The Global Financial Platform of Choice
Adyen, by fulfilling its customers’ needs, has emerged as the global financial platform of choice for leading companies. The partnership with Mandai Wildlife Group fits perfectly with their larger vision of enabling businesses to unlock new growth opportunities.
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The Future of Integrated Payment Solutions
Gargav envisions that integrated payment solutions will become more common in places of interest around the world. The unified commerce insights have the potential to unlock new levels of operational efficiency and customer personalisation.
As consumers demand more personalised and engaging experiences, we find that businesses are looking to integrate their online and offline experiences to fulfill these expectations. Our recent Retail Report 2023 study revealed that 46% of Singapore businesses are keen on investing in connecting backend systems, such as inventory management, with various customer-facing payment channels, including mobile phone applications, live chat, website and social media to glean insightful data and provide a cohesive experience for customers.
Gargav
ROLLER, an all-in-one venue management software platform for modern attractions like Skyline in Singapore and Scenic World in Australia, is an example of how a hospitality business is meeting the evolving customer demands. Faced with the challenge of ensuring consistent and reliable payment experiences across the attractions supported on its platform, ROLLER leveraged Adyen’s expertise in streamlining their sales, guest services, and attraction management processes. With a simplified payments solution in place, ROLLER is now able to link payment transaction information directly to each guest, centralise transaction data and help the attractions gain real-time guest insights like average basket size, authorization rates, and conversion rates.
Through its transformative solutions, Adyen is redefining the visitor experience at Mandai Wildlife Reserve, marking a significant leap in the realm of integrated payment solutions. By offering a seamless payment experience, Adyen is shaping the future of visitor-centric experiences.
