Your marketing can cost your business chargebacks. eCommerce marketing is meant to draw customers in. However, it continues to follow clients through their relationships with businesses.
Mistakes in marketing can cause confusion with overpromises and inaccurate information. As a business owner, your last intention is to mislead customers.
Chargebacks caused by marketing gaps can be found across a few key pillars, including social media and customer service.
Why is it Important to Watch Chargebacks?
Chargebacks result from customer disputes in which they believe they were wronged by a business. A common cause for chargebacks is a fraudulent or unauthorized transaction. Unresolved disputes become chargebacks that will cost businesses money.
A high chargeback to transaction ratio can make a business high risk. High risk merchants have a more difficult time qualifying for merchant accounts and payment processes. Businesses can lose their merchant accounts in extreme cases of chargeback issues.
Marketing can seem irrelevant to racking up chargebacks. However, anything that is part of the customer experience can affect the likelihood of disputes.
What Aspects of Marketing Can Cause Chargebacks?
Managing Expectations
The hard work of running a business comes from fulfilling promises. It can be easy to overpromise and underdeliver. Compromise of quality service can be unintentional as details get lost. The way you manage customer expectations can make or break your client relationships.
There are two primary points of expectations when it comes to the customer experience:
- Timelines: Time is of essence is nowhere more true than in business. From the first point of contact to delivery, the amount of time it takes to fulfill an order impacts the customer experience. Set the right timeline expectations by noting how long clients can expect to wait for you to fulfill a product or service. This can be in your policies, website, or confirmation emails.
- Price: No merchant wants to give their customers sticker shock. Be clear with your prices and communicate any changes that may happen over time. This is especially essential for service-based businesses with fluctuating prices dependent on individual services.
Product and Service Claims
Most businesses do not outright lie about their products and services. However, certain claims can mislead customers even with the right intention.
Industries such as nutraceuticals and CBD can make unfounded claims that confuse clients. These claims can be true for many, but not have the same effect for everybody. For example, a certain product meant to improve dry skin can work for most clients, but not all.
Businesses must continue to manage expectations if their products and services claim to have specific outcomes that may not be true for every user. Don’t promise that a certain outcome is guaranteed.
Customer Service
Customer service works to retain the customers that marketing brings in. Spotty communication can frustrate clients and leave unresolved disputes. Tightening client service practices can reduce chargebacks. Even if your business does make a mistake, the right customer service can resolve it without resulting in a chargeback.
Social Media
Social media is a powerful marketing vehicle. Businesses interact with audiences through multiple online social channels.
However, merchants need to be careful that their media use is not one-sided. It isn’t enough to post about your products and services. Social media is an additional channel of communication for potential or existing customers. Ensure that your business can respond to and interact with your media audience as a way to manage expectations.
Chargeback Protection
Mistakes and disputes are inevitable. RevitPay works with high risk businesses that are vulnerable to high chargeback rates. Our merchants are equipped with chargeback alerts that give them an advantage in preventing chargebacks. Contact us today to find out how we can further lower your chargeback rate.