Anybody would get skeptical about their money if they do not get a confirmation after making an online transaction. Also as a merchant, we would definitely desire for best services through any service provider.
Before you start reading further, let me highlight the fact that this is not only about CCAvenue, but the dilemma faced by all Payment gateways in India and thereby the end customer.
CCAvenue, like any other international or national third party payment gateway service provider, depends on the banks for utmost success rate.
The whole transaction eco system is governed by the banks and their policies, payment gateways play inter-mediatory roles only.
There may be instances of failed transactions for various reasons like,
Heavy traffic on the banks servers.
Slow internet connectivity.
Maintenance down time.
Lack of funds in the customer’s account or wrong card details entered in the payment page. Etc.
The above scenarios are almost inevitable for obvious reasons. Yet, with the help of high end technology and dedicated experts, CCAvenue proudly boasts of the highest success rate in its league of service providers.
If the money has been deducted from the customer(who intends to make the payment) and has not reached the merchant(who is selling the product and is using CCAvenue as the medium for payment collection), the banks have standard set of norms and procedures to compensate the customer depending the mode of payment used(Credit card, Debit card or netbanking)
The money is remitted back to the customer’s account as per the policies of the bank and the bank governing bodies. Payment gateways do not have a say on it as the actual fund transfer happens amongst the banks.
As a trusted and a relied brand, the customers look upon CCAvenue for the reimbursement of the blocked fund. They might push the banks for an early and swift feedback to the customer but it is all the banks call in the end.
In some cases, the banking procedures might get delayed which causes inconvenience to the customer.
(Bank holidays, Fixed work timings, delay in making reports, Communication lag between different banks etc.)
For these the Payment gateways cannot be held responsible!
Secondly about customer support, to be very honest all payment gateways are poor compared to international standards,
In my personal survey, CCAvenue is the only payment gateway which provides 24X7 support to the end customers as well as the merchants. This includes Mail+ Phone+ Chat support. Though the claims were not satisfactory, but other payment gateways did not even claim of good customer support;)
MORAL OF THE STORY: CCAvenue is either worse of the worst Or Best of the better.
The only factor differentiating the PG’s are the number of banking options the gateways are offering and the add-on facilities(which do matter a lot).
CCAvenue being the big boy off all the children has always had the first movers advantage. They claim to cater services to 85% merchants in India and are the by default favorite choice all major websites. Not sure about the numbers, but have seen their name on almost all websites.
Once again,
CCAvenue is either worse of the worst Or Best of the better.;)
Cheers,
EcommerceBaba