Your say on REFUND

[charleskirkland]

Hi Anthony

You are spot on about giving them more then they bought. I have one product were they keep getting bonus from me weeks after they buy. Even have the 60days I still send them things.

This really makes people bond with me and helps create more sales for me after the fact.

Charles

[Lee Lickorish]

I also agree that offering a no quibble money back guarantee benefits both customer and seller, I also believe in seriously over delivering value and service. But there is one tactic that you could use which is this.

Let's say you offering a 60 day money back guarantee, you could have your autoresponder setup that on the day 55 your customer will receive an unexpected and extremely valuable bonus within seven days, you could even start a bit before that building the unexpected bonus up and a few days before the guarantee is up, announce that they will receive it free of charge for being a valued customer.

Using this tactic should lessen your refunds, but you will always get a few who want a refund regardless of what you offer them.

Just a thought,
Lee

[Mark Sullivan]

Hi,

It wouldn't hurt a bit to split test your page on this.

Yes, I agree that risk reversal is important ... it's what all the 'gurus' teach. However, this has become envogue more and more over the years.

Everybody is feeling the pressure to give the guarantees because 'the other guy is doing it'.

Don't get me wrong, I think providing a guarantee is very smart. However, just test it. That'll be your final answer.

If you're offer and product and sales page (with video) is that good, people will overlook the guarantee, a lot. Especially if it's priced right.

I've been in the lead business and providing lead generation services for over 7yrs now with NO guarantee. It just doesn't work for my business, but it certainly hasn't hurt mine. Though it is very different that info product business or software selling.

Hope this offers another viewpoint worthy of consideration,

Mark


P.S. CharlesKirkland has some good info and I would default to his expertise.

[Barry Weiss]

Here is an additional point regarding refunds.

If you have a merchant account and make refunding difficult you will end up with high chargebacks and lose your ability to process credit cards.

Customers that either don't recognize the text phrase on their statement or have trouble finding the customer service number or email address for requesting refunds will simply call their bank. The bank will charge you back and, although, you have the ability to fight it, even if you win and the bank reverses the chargeback that chargeback (complaint) statistic remains on your record.

If you sell a good product or service that delivers the claims that you make the vast majority of customers will never request a refund or charge you back. If, however, you don't deliver, then maybe you shouldn't be selling that product/service.

[Anthony Buchalka]

Here is an additional point regarding refunds.

If you have a merchant account and make refunding difficult you will end up with high chargebacks and lose your ability to process credit cards.

Customers that either don't recognize the text phrase on their statement or have trouble finding the customer service number or email address for requesting refunds will simply call their bank. The bank will charge you back and, although, you have the ability to fight it, even if you win and the bank reverses the chargeback that chargeback (complaint) statistic remains on your record.

If you sell a good product or service that delivers the claims that you make the vast majority of customers will never request a refund or charge you back. If, however, you don't deliver, then maybe you shouldn't be selling that product/service.

I agree with what you said Barry!

If someone wants a refund for any reason, there's no point trying to talk them out of it or making the refund process difficult for them (even if their reason for refunding is “questionable”)

It’s a waste of your time and energy.

Best to just give the refund and move on.

Something worth thinking about as well is the fact that some people who refund a product from you may well buy something else from you later (unless of course they found your product was poor quality).

There are many reasons why customers refund from “I didn't get around to using the product” right through to the irrational refunders such as one I had a couple of months back who claimed one of my ebooks caused her brand new laser printer to jam and wanted me to replace her cartridge!

My refund motto is to always offer a quick and courteous refund and depending on the nature of the refund, I may remove them from my list or I may keep them on my list.

I found from testing that some refunders will buy a different product from you down the track if you treat them well and maintain a good relationship with them.

Lastly, it’s always wise to keep a bit of a log of the reasons why people are refunding a product. You may discover something that can be changed with a result of a decreased refund rate. (for eg. a poor quality audio could be redone or grammatical errors in an ebook can be edited).

Cheers.

Anthony

[Barry Weiss]

Good point about logging the reasons Anthony.

Call centers use a disposition report that identifies the list of reasons for a refund or customer service call. By analying the reasons it is often possible to identify problems that can either be corrected with the product or simply by changing copy to better manage customer expectations.

If you can log the reason code to the customer record and analyse customer's multiple purchase history, you can find out which ones are chronic refunders and stop wasting your marketing dollars on them.

Thanks for the good info.

Barry

[AbhishekAgarwal]

Hi Mrugank

As everyone has said, having a Refund policy actually works in your favor. It instills enough belief in the minds of your buyers, and you definitely increase your chances of conversions.

I wold like to give you a tip here.

Right next to your refund policy, provide your email / help desk url. After stating your refund policy, tell them something like "If you are not satisfied with our product, just get in touch with us HERE.

Providing your contact details right front of their face would make them trust you more, and would also send them a message that you believe in what you are selling.

- Abhi

[Barry Weiss]

Most of us are not "Brands" and our potential customers do not know us. Therefore, an iron clad guarantee helps take the risk out of the buying decision.

Also as Abhishek mentioned, providing an easy and clear method of contact also helps, as long as you respond to questions and refund requests quickly. By using an autoresponder to confirm reciept of the request with a time that you will respond (managing expectation) is very important. In some cases you might even be able to win back the customer.

I'd have to go with the general consensus on this one. Refund policies seem to be a pretty standard way to boost sales. As mentioned before, the best way to handle it is to go in with it understanding that it is a necessary evil and plan for refunds. Some of the folks i have worked in the past few months with expect refund rates of up to 30%!

Another interesting bit about offering a refund is as a metric for affiliate performance. Consider two affiliates. Affiliate A brought in 50 sales and Affiliate B only brought in 25. At first Affiliate A looks like the guy we should be giving a little more attention to. But after 60 days, Affiliate A had 30 refunds while Affiliate B only had 5 refunds. Both affiliates resulted in 20 sales, but with a 60% refund rate you might want to consider the type of offers you are allowing Affiliate A on. At the same time, i'm going to take Affiliate B out for a beer and see if we could cook up a JV, because my products obviously work for his list.

[Barry Weiss]

Mike you bring up a great point and that is monitoring all aspects of the business. Impressions, opens, clicks, conversions, sales, refunds, complaints, life cycle, etc.

This will permit a business owner to really find out which channels deliver quality sales and highest life time value (LTV) and it is all about LTV.

Thanks.