How Do You Handle Refund Requests?

It's always wise to offer a refund policy because you get more sales that way.
Why don't you want to offer a refund policy? It makes people suspicious.

Don't decide whether to offer refunds or not until...............

Until what?

Until you've TESTED the effect it has on sales.

So have ONE sales page/offer/pitch WITH refunds and one WITHOUT and see which one generates the most revenue at the end of a period. (After your refund period has elapsed)

That way, unlike most marketers, you'll know whether to have a refund policy or not based on YOUR product/audience/customers.

P.S. I've tested this and in MY market I sell more/make more WITH a firm refund offer in place.

Good Luck

Think of the law of averages in my opinion. You will get more sales and there will be a certain amount of people may wish to get a refund, but to be honest, a lot of them will forget to cancel anyway.

We do this for web dev (graphical related)...

If they don't want to continue with mock ups after their first mock up, we give a full refund.

I they don't want to continue with mock ups after their second mock up, we give a 50% refund.

We retain all rights to the design if they choose to do a refund.


This seems to work well for us so far...

Depends on how you're processing sales, but far as I know visa / mc regulations require you to post a refund policy. If you are going through clickbank/paypal etc they wont approve your site until you have one. Sell a good product and you wont have to worry much about it. Refunds are much better than chargebacks, BTW..

I think it depends on what your selling. If I sell a website there is no refund and I only require 50% upfront and then 50% before they get the files.

For an online info product or software I offer 30 days. Someone on the forum actually said you'll get a less refunds with a 60 day policy because people will have more time to think about it and might eventually forget (or will just keep putting it off).

Another tactic I saw for an online product was to offer refunds for technical only issues. Meaning if the product doesn't work for them then they can get a refund.

If your product is good, you should offer a refund. The refund policy is for you to stand behind what you say your product will do. Its really to establish credibility.

If you don't offer a refund becoz you are just starting out, it only means that you are not confident about your product.

If you arent confident in your product, chances are, your prospects wont be too.

Hi there,

What Claude Whitacre said above is correct. If someone is going to return/refund something they bought on the internet, their first thought is to backcharge their credit card transaction. This can ruin your merchant account if your chargeback rates creep above 1-2%.

Claude is right in that the decision is made within 30 days, usually a lot sooner. Soooo....you could offer a 60-day return policy and not lose any more than if you had a 30-day plus you might make more sales to make up for any returns/refunds.

The best policy is to have a follow up sequence that checks in with the customer after they've bought. They bought because they thought your product/service would change their lives in some way. They still want that change. If you keep in touch with them (email messages are fine) you can get them to respond to you first if they're not happy with the product. This allows you to offer solutions, help, articles, etc to them and have them feel guilty about getting a refund.

If your product is a one-off "sell 'em and flee" type deal, then none of the above matters.

All the best,

Sasha

What type of products or services are you planning on selling?

There are some case studies about this in the 4 Hour Work Week. If you haven't read that book it is always among the first I suggest to people.

From there and everything I have read a good solid refund policy helps increase sales. And of the studies I have seen there is very little difference from a 30 day policy to a much longer one. I would suggest going longer as it will make you stand out.

But as always it has to make business sense.

Jim,

Info Products... I'd offer a 365 day refund.....

Services..... No refund.... I'd have them e-sign a formal contract before commencing any work...

To paraphrase the way one guy put it.....

"For my Services, I don't offer a refund. I can't get my time back. So, you can't get your money back. If you find a way to get my time back, e-mail me and I'll consider changing my refund policy."

Of course, I would advocate testing.....

But, there are many "real world" pros who don't offer a refund....

Doctors....
Lawyers...
Plumbers...
Auto Mechanics....
And many more...

God Bless,

Rich Beck BCIP, MCSD, MCIS

Can you be a little clearer about what you're selling? Most people don't offer refunds on a service. If I go to the dentist and they don't do the best job cleaning my teeth, I'm not going to ask for a refund. No one will think it's weird that you don't offer a refund for a service unless you guarantee something (and I wouldn't do that). You could offer something like "revisions until you're happy" if you're selling websites, graphics, writing, etc.

honestly if you're doing a bad job and the clients want a refund, I believe they have all the right to ask for a refund.

If you are selling a physical good, you have to offer a refund or people will think that you don't stand behind your product, which means they won't buy. No one likes refunds, but they are part of doing business. The key is to manage them to an acceptable level that fits within your business model. As an example, I run a direct response marketing business that sells goods. All of our profit models are built off of allowing 10% refund rate. This is an acceptable level for us in terms of cash flow and chargeback management. If the refund level starts to creep beyond our acceptable threshold, our CS tightens up on the policy and little, and pushes more value in order to bring the refunds back down to an acceptable level.

I believe that you should offer a refund policy. I have only ever asked for a refund once and that was because the software didn't work as it was supposed to. They gave me the refund. I wondered how many other people had asked for a refund before me.
If you create a really good product you should have very few people who ask for a refund.

Offer refund and have a refund policy, but you have to let them know and provide in that policy that it's a case to case basis, for sure you don't want to give refund to abusive customers.

If you plan not to mention refund policy is ok but it's not ok BUT if someone ask for refund, give it because can risk to face some d...head who can spread bad voice about your business. So better lose $20 or $50 than 10 more potential customers.

I think that If you offer a clear refund policy eventually you will earn many more clients.