Notifications

QuickStream can send notifications about payment events to your customers on your behalf. These notifications can be sent as an email or an SMS message.

Notifications can be sent for QuickBatch or recurring payment schedules.

Setting up notifications

The types of notifications you want your customer to receive are configured in QuickStream Portal. To do this, go to Administration, then Facility Settings, then Customer Notifications.

Types of notifications and the medium

There are six notifications types that can fire on specific payment events. These are:

• A recurring payment was created.
• A recurring payment was updated.
• A recurring payment was stopped.
• A recurring payment is due to be taken.
• On a successful card or bank account payment.
• On a declined card or bank account payment.

You can turn each of these on or off individually. You can also restrict the medium (email and/or SMS message) too. For example, you may wish to notify your customers about a recurring payment being created for them via email. But you might notify customers about declined payments via SMS message.

More information about each notification type are below.

Recurring payment created

Supported for products: Recurring

When is this sent? When a recurring payment schedule is created through QuickStream Portal, Recurring Batch or Web. If the first payment date is the current settlement date, then a payment is made immediatley. In this case, no notificaiton is sent and the user is presented with a receipt page for the payment and the ability to send an email receipt.

What is in the message content?: The email message content has a Westpac look and feel with default content. The SMS message content has default content.

Recurring payment updated

Supported for products: Recurring

When is this sent? When a recurring payment schedule is updated through QuickStream Portal, Recurring Batch or Web.

What is in the message content?: The email message content has a Westpac look and feel with default content. The SMS message content has default content.

Recurring payment stopped

Supported for products: Recurring

When is this sent? When a recurring payment schedule is stopped through QuickStream Portal.

What is in the message content?: The email message content has a Westpac look and feel with default content. The SMS message content has default content.

Next recurring payment due

Supported for products: Recurring

When is this sent? When an active recurring payment is due five calendar days from the current date. This notification is only sent for Monthly, Quarterly, Six-Monthly and Yearly frequencies.

What is in the message content?: The email message content has a Westpac look and feel with default content. The SMS message content has default content.

Payment successful

Supported for products: Recurring, QuickBatch

When is this sent? When a recurring card or bank account payment was successful via QuickStream Portal, Recurring Batch or Web, or QuickBatch.

What is in the message content?: The email message content has a Westpac look and feel with default content. The SMS message content has default content.

Payment declined

Supported for products: Recurring, QuickBatch

When is this sent? When a recurring card or bank account payment was declined by the account holder's financial institution via QuickStream Portal, Recurring Batch or Web, or QuickBatch.

What is in the message content?: The email message content has a Westpac look and feel with default content. The SMS message content has default content.

Note: When your facility is set to automatically retry Recurring or QuickBatch payments, your customer will be notified that the payment was declined and the next date it will be retried. For QuickBatch and Recurring transactions, you may set an automatic retry schedule when they are "soft-declined". A transaction that has soft-declined can be retried and may be successful in the future. See Response codes for those which can soft-decline.

Customer's preferred notification medium

Your customers are set up with a preferred notification medium. These are:

• Both email and SMS. An email and/or SMS message notifications can be sent to the customer.
• Email only. Only email notifications can be sent to the customer.
• SMS only. Only SMS message notifications can be sent to the customer.
• None. Notifications will not be sent to the customer. This value is set when a customer unsubscribes from all notifications.

Unsubscribing from emails

Your customers may unsubscribe from email notifications. At the bottom of each notification email is a link to unsubscribe. When a customer clicks on that link it will take your customer to a QuickStream page to notify them that all email notifications will not be sent to them from your company.

If your customer was also set to receive SMS notifications, they will now only receive notifications via a SMS message.

Unsubscribing from SMS messages

Your customers may unsubscribe from SMS notifications. Your customer can unsubscribe from SMS notifications by replying to an SMS message notification with the word STOP. Your customer will no longer receive SMS messages from your company.

If your customer was also set to receive email notifications, they will now only receive notifications via email.

The word STOP is not case sensitive. This means they can reply to an SMS message notification with STOP, Stop, stop, etc. and they will be unsubscribed from SMS message notifications.

The "from" email address

In QuickStream Portal, you can set the email address your customers will receive emails from. This will be displayed in their emails as the "from address".

By default, this will be do-not-reply@qvalent.com. To set this to a different address, in QuickStream Portal go to Administration -> Business Settings -> Choose your business -> Electronic Communication.

The "from" SMS number

The "from" SMS number will be dynamic numbers used by our SMS provider. However, the first words of any SMS notification sent to your customers is your Business Name and your contact phone number is included in the SMS message.

To set your business name and contact phone number, in QuickStream Portal go to Administration -> Business Settings -> Choose your business -> Change business and contact details.

For example, an SMS notification for a company called John's Cakes would be:

John's Cakes. This is to confirm a payment of $100.00 per month was set up. The first payment will occur on 12 Jun 2016. Reply STOP to unsubscribe.

SMS message length

SMS messages are limited to 160 characters including spaces.

If you send more than 160 characters then your message will be broken down by the service provider in to separate SMS messages (up to 6 totalling 918 characters) before being sent to the recipient's handset. In most cases, the recipient's handset will re-form the individual messages to look like a single cohesive message.

SMS notifications are sent during business hours

SMS notifications are sent during business hours (9am to 5pm) according to the time-zone set on your facility. To change the time-zone, sign into QuickStream Portal, select Administration, then Facility Settings and select a time zone.

Email notifications are sent immediately after the event.

Testing

Test plan

Your test plan can include any of the following. Choose appropriate tests for your product combinations and requirements.

About testing email notifications

QuickStream sends email notifications to real email addresses. Be careful not to set your customers' email addresses in the test environment.

About testing SMS message notifications

QuickStream cannot send SMS notifications in the test environment. Instead, QuickStream sends SMS message content via email in the test environment. When moving to Production testing before go-live, be sure to repeat your test plan.

Test account numbers

See Test card and bank account numbers.

Response codes

See Transaction Response Codes.