f you are an online store owner, you have probably encountered the problem of fake orders, which are orders that are sent on store products using fake data either by mistake from the customer or due to incorrect user behavior, which may cause inconvenience to your support team and perhaps losses at times.
By relying on the OTP verification system, which asks the user to confirm through a message sent to his phone number, this helps you obtain real orders from real customers.
In this article, you will learn about the importance of activating the OTP customer phone number verification system, and you will also learn about the way this system works, and through practical steps you will know how to activate the phone number verification system within your online store to combat fake or counterfeit orders.
The OTP phone number verification system works through 3 basic steps:
- The customer begins by entering his data, including the phone number, within the site or store.
- The OTP verifies the phone number entered and, if it is a valid phone number, an SMS message is sent to the person containing a code made up of numbers or distinct numbers and letters.
- The customer enters the confirmation code on the site and thus verifies that he is a real person first, and also ensures that he is using a correct phone number second
The importance of activating OTP verification within your online store
Directly or indirectly, the phone number verification system helps you increase the efficiency of the requests that come to you, through the following:
- Reducing the percentage of in-store returns : Some online stores send orders directly to the shipping company that has the stock of products, and therefore if the customer’s phone number is incorrect, the order will be set as a return, and therefore if verification of the customer’s phone number is activated, This contributes significantly to the low rate of store returns.
- Verifying store customer data : Activating OTP verification helps you ensure that your customer data inside the store is correct, and thus you can use it for marketing purposes or send discounts and gifts to your customers, unlike if you are not sure of your customer data, which means wasting your marketing efforts.
- Confronting the phenomenon of electronic fraud : Some saboteurs may use programs to send large quantities of orders within your store with the aim of consuming the store’s server resources. When the OTP verification system is activated, no order will be accepted or processed unless the customer’s phone number is confirmed, and thus you can confront Great for fraud within your store.
- Reducing unintended errors : Sometimes a person enters the store and places an order, and accidentally enters his phone number incorrectly, and thus he may not be able to receive the order, but if he confirms the phone number via the OTP verification code, this helps reduce the percentage of Such unintentional errors.
Steps to activate OTP verification of the phone number while completing the order inside the store
In order to activate the OTP verification service, we will use the Sms Verification add-on , which you can start for free, to verify the phone number of your online store customers when completing the order.
This add-on was developed by FraudLabs, a company that specializes in producing software systems that support securing and protecting websites and combating fraud. The add-on provides a free opportunity for WordPress owners to try activating OTP verification, as the add-on gives you 500 free points in your account every month, and every message sent to a customer is deducted. Adding points from your free points balance, and if you want to get more points, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans .
After installing and activating the add-on on your site , you will go to the add-on’s settings tab from within the WordPress control panel, and we will notice that the points balance available to us is 0, so we must click on the (Add more credits ) button in order for it to transfer us to the add-on’s website, where We register a free account to get a free 500 point balance:
We will be directed directly to the official website of the extension, and from there we click on the free registration button Try for free:
You must register a free account on the site, where the registration window will open for you in which you enter your data, such as name and email, and then click on the registration button:
After you successfully register the account, your account control panel on the site will open in front of you, in which you will find the external link code API Key:
Copy this API Key code, then go to the WordPress control panel, specifically in the settings tab for the plugin, then paste the API code in the place designated for it:
Within the same add-on settings page, you will find a group of settings related to the method of sending and receiving OTP confirmation messages to the phone number of the store’s customers, and among these options are the following:
- Maximum SMS attempts, in which you can set the maximum number of attempts in which you allow the customer to request to send an OTP code.
- Instructions for verifying messages : In which you write the text that you want to appear on the payment completion page in order to ask the customer to confirm his phone number.
- SMS message content: You write the text that is sent in an SMS text message to the customer’s phone number along with his confirmation code.
- SMS timeout : This is the period of time during which the OTP confirmation code is valid for use after sending it in a text message to the customer.
- Country code : Here you choose the country of the store, so that confirmation messages are sent using a phone number that uses the country code, which gives the client greater confidence in the content of the messages.
Within the same settings page you will also find some other options such as:
6. Invalid phone number message: Here you write the text that appears in front of the customer if the phone number is written incorrectly.
7. Incorrect OTP message: Here you write the text that appears in front of the customer if he enters the OTP confirmation code sent to his phone incorrectly.
Finally, after you configure and complete all the settings for the addition in the manner we explained, and in the appropriate manner for your store, do not forget to click the Save Changes button.
Now only one step remains for the OTP confirmation system to be activated for phone numbers on your store, which is by entering the add-on settings page, then going to the Woocommerce tab, then clicking on the (Enable) button, and below the Enable button we find an option to specify the type of customers that you want to confirm from. Their phone numbers, where you will find some options such as (new customer) or (customer from a specific country). You can choose the appropriate option for you and then save the changes on this page:
At this step, you have completed all the basic settings to operate the customer phone number verification system within the store during order completion.
Now visit your store and create a new order for one of the products. You will notice on the order completion page a notification informing you that you must confirm your phone number, which you entered in the order completion form with confirmation:
noteThe text on the button is in English (Verify your phone number now). The plugin does not allow it to be translated by default, so you can use one of the translation plugins in WordPress to translate the text into Arabic if you want.
When you click on the confirm button, you are asked to confirm from the phone number to which the OTP confirmation code will be sent:
Immediately after that, the OTP confirmation code will be sent to the phone number:
A window will appear asking you to enter the confirmation code sent to your phone:
After you enter the confirmation code and click on the Verify button, you will be redirected again to the order completion form and you will notice a notification informing you that your phone number has been successfully verified, and you can complete your order inside the store:
In the end, it is necessary to secure your website or online store, and the OTP verification system is considered an effective way to combat fraud and ensure the quality of the orders that reach you.
