LL - Refund Policy Abuse Guidelines
Refund Policy Abuse - Preventing customers from taking advantage of the 365-day money-back guarantee.
- Goal: Distinguish between customers seeking valid refunds and those who are taking advantage of our refund policy.
- Determine if the refunds were unreasonable (see warning behaviors below)
- Actions: For customers, suspected of abusing our policy or having 3 or more unreasonable refunds, the refund team should ask for a 2nd opinion from a manager in the CH_refunds_ channel before blacklisting the cx in sticky, or adding to the fraud filter in Shopify.
- Upon blocking someone from placing future orders, you should provide proper documentation about why the decision was made. (Thorough notes, with reasons or lack of reason for refunds, orders and qty’s refunded, what if anything was returned, who approved the blacklist, etc.)
What is an unreasonable refund?
Warning Behaviors to look for: Red flags
- Customers seeking multiple refunds on the same product (usually w/o a return)
- Customers seeking multiple refunds on several different products (usually w/o a return)
- Customers seeking refunds on all orders within a subscription or multiple subscriptions (usually w/o a return)
- Customers who don’t give a reason for the refund, or cite something generic like ‘no results’ but then continue to order different things and repeat the process again and again.
- Customers who place large orders, state that they used all the bottles, get a full refund, and then place a multiple bottle order of a different thing and repeat the process again and again.
- Getting a full refund because the product ‘did not work’, then ordering the same product again some period of time later.
- Multiple refunds on same or different products without anything to return.
- Anything that feels “off” or “scammy” or “shady”.
VS. Good Behaviors: Green flags
- Customer has a valid reason such as ‘medically advised against’, an adverse reaction, or the product contained a certain ingredient they were not aware of.
- A customer will order 6 bottles, not like it or not get results, and return their unopened bottles for a refund.
- Doesn’t feel scammy or sneaky
- Gives valid reasons, and returns unopened bottles
Research their previous orders / transactions
When refunding an order through sticky.io, you should search the order using the customer's email address, instead of the order ID.
This allows you to see ALL the orders placed by the customer instead of just a single order. It’s a good idea to cross-check by searching their First and Last name too, since some customers have multiple email addresses.
Example Customer - yumi sagara has received multiple refunds
If you view this customer in sticky you will see that she has placed multiple orders, some with the products she previously ordered/refunded, and received a refund on all of them. This is a red flag to look deeper into the reasons why she requested refunds, did she return anything, and if it feels like she was taking advantage of us, then she should be blacklisted.
Note: Viewing the status column can help alert you immediately that a customer has received multiple refunds, and you need to look into this further in case the customer needs to be blacklisted.
If you see any red flag behaviors, you should next check the Zoho complaint forms to gauge the reasons for the previous refund/s, and if anything was returned.
In Zoho you will need to search by customer name or email address, view their customer profile then view complaints.
You will also need to check the previous conversations on the right-hand side when we are working on a refund ticket, notice ‘refund’ in the title of each conversation. However, it is a good idea to look through them all in case the subject was never changed to reflect the refund.
Seek manager approval
If you are refunding a customer and notice a pattern like that described above, take a screenshot, investigate in Zoho and HelpScout, and alert a manager for a 2nd opinion (in the CH_refunds_ channel).
If the manager approves the blacklist - you can do this in sticky. If it is a Shopify customer you will need to assign the ticket notation to ZEL who will add the customer to the Shopify fraud filter for you.
Note the ticket thoroughly.
FAQs
What actions should I take if a customer requests a refund and I notice they have lots of red flags?
Do your investigation before processing the refund.
- If a customer has already had 3 or more unreasonable refunds, ask for a 2nd opinion in theCH_refunds_ channel. Make sure to provide a thorough explanation along with Name/Email/Orders previously refunded/Reasons for the refunds and if there was anything returned in your post. This will help the manager in deciding the next actions. Let the manager know that you haven’t processed the refund yet, in case they want to forgo the refund or offer some exchange to the customer.
What if a customer who has been previously blacklisted wants to place a new order? Follow this protocol