Refunds, Chargebacks, and How to Deal with Angry Customers

Hey, credit heroes. Today's podcast is all about how to deal with angry customers over money, refunds, chargebacks, and a whole lot more. If you are in a business where you deal with customers, you better stick around.

My name is Daniel Rosen, and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets.

On this podcast, I have covered just about everything that you're ever going to face in a credit repair business. We brought on millionaires to share their secrets. We've shared dispute tactics for every kind of item you'll find on a credit report, including inquiries, charge off bankruptcies, repos, you name it, we've had episodes about it. And by the way, if you're not subscribed to this podcast, I highly recommend it because every single week, you will learn something to improve your business. It's one of our greatest resources and it is completely free, so be sure to click below to subscribe if you haven't already so that you don't miss next week's secrets. Okay, before we get into this, this podcast is brought to you by the Credit Hero Challenge. If you want me to hold you by the hand as you launch your very own credit repair business, go to creditherochallenge.com and sign up. Sign up now. Oh, and I love this part. Every episode, I am featuring one of our credit heroes inside our Credit Repair Cloud Facebook community so that you can see firsthand what real people are doing as they launch and grow their business. And today's spotlight is on Pamela Albury Johnson, who got certified in Credit Repair Cloud. She took our challenge and just started the masterclass and she still works full time as a registered nurse. Pamela posted this recently to say that she just got incorporated as Nurse Credit llc. She got her business bank account and she did this all within two weeks. And she already has nine clients. And she says, someone tell Daniel Rosen that I am interested in that Millionaires Club. Wow, Pamela, I am so excited by how motivated you are. Nine clients and all this stuff done in just two weeks and still working a full time job. You are amazing. It looks like you're doing something every single day to move your business forward. And I'll tell you, if you keep doing that, I know I'm going to be seeing you in the millionaires club someday. Okay, this podcast has been on now for about two and a half years and. And this is our 129th episode. And in the very, very, very beginning of this podcast, one of my very first episodes, it actually had the wrong title and very few people saw it. And to me, it's one of the most important episodes that I've ever done. So if you are in a business where you deal with people, or if you've ever gotten in an argument with a customer over money, or you, or you worry about refunds and chargebacks and things like that, if that freaks you out, this is your second chance to see this very important episode. Here we go. There was a post in a business group that I follow where someone was advising that you should take customers who don't pay you or who owe you money and send them to collections. And I thought that was horrifying. Here's why. If you have customers, okay, especially if you're in a service based business, it's your job to over deliver value. Sure, we all need to make a living. But the moment that you put your focus, all of your focus on money in such a negative way, that's when things go downhill real fast. Now instead you might want to stop and think about why that customer doesn't want to pay you. Now, early on in my first version of my business, 20 years ago, I was selling this little $20 download. And I had spent years making it and all my savings. And then when I tried to sell it, I was terrible at that. In a good week I'd be lucky if I could make $100. And I couldn't live on that money. But I tried my best to learn this new business while I was trying to survive. And in the beginning, I didn't have a way to automate the delivery. When someone would buy my little download, I didn't know how to build that part and I couldn't afford to hire someone to help me to finish it. So I would just sit at home 247 and not go anywhere. And then when a sale would come in, I had all these bells and sirens that would go off and that would happen at all hours of the day or night. And then I would jump up like a fireman to create the registration code for the software and to quickly send the email with the download link as to the customer. And I would do this as fast as I could to make it look like it was an automated system and I was the robot sending the order. But there wasn't any robot. It was just me. Now, because of that, I couldn't leave my house the entire first year of the business because I didn't want customers to be upset over their order taking too long. So I literally wouldn't leave the house ever. And this was a terrible way to live, especially since sales didn't even happen every day. Some whole weeks would go by and I'd only sell one $20 download. But there were a few times I had to leave the house, like to go to the grocery store to run a quick errand. And whenever I did that, that's when I would sell one. And it never failed. I would always come home and to emails from an angry customer who was all upset that he had ordered a download 10 minutes earlier. And by the time I got home, he was already wanting a refund. This happened all the time. And people would get so impatient. I mean, I guess they thought I was some big company. They didn't know it was just me sitting there in my underpants trying to get my business started and to make grocery money. And then there would be other people who would actually buy and get and install and use my little download. And then they'd ask for a refund. And it wasn't a huge amount. It was only $20 download. But it would make me crazy because I knew that they had used it. And at that time, it really hurt. And I couldn't refund it. I needed that money to eat. So I would do whatever I could to hang on to that money. So if a customer had a problem, I'd argue with them. If they said they couldn't install it or that it didn't work, I'd blame it on them. I'm really, really embarrassed about this today, but at that time, I would do whatever I could to avoid giving them a refund. But that only bought me a few extra days with their money because all they had to do was file a charge back with their bank and. And they'd get all their money instantly. So I wasn't really saving anything by acting this way. And yet I would spend days and days so angry and stressed and writing reports to try to outsmart the system and to win the chargebacks and get that money back. And I was doing all that instead of working on my business. That became my number one priority to find ways around chargebacks and refunds. And that's all I thought about. And I just knew there had to be a way around it. I even tried sending a physical product to them, even though they only paid for a download. I would send a CD too, just to get a signed proof of delivery, to be able to say, look, they accepted the package. Look, they signed for delivery and they never returned it. But even that didn't work. I'm not proud of this. Like I said, I was just getting my business going and I was doing what I had to, to survive. But looking back, I'm really embarrassed. I mean, at that time I should have been thinking, is it me? Am I doing something wrong? Is there something wrong with my product? My biggest mistake back then was that I wasn't trying to put myself in the customer's shoes or to think about what the experience was like for them. Had I actually stopped to put myself in my customer's shoes, I know I would have had success much, much faster. Here's why this is important to you. Through all of this, I learned an important lesson. If a customer is not wanting to pay you, there might be a good chance that you are not delivering enough value. Or maybe you are, but the customer doesn't know it because maybe you're not communicating enough to them. In a service based business like credit repair, you need to always over deliver value and over communicate. If you're just getting a tiny number of refund requests, that's normal. Even the biggest and the best companies get some refund requests and even a few chargebacks. It's never zero, it's usually about 1%. But if you're getting a lot of refunds and a lot of chargebacks more than 1%, you need to find out what's going wrong. Never argue with customers over money. I learned this the hard way. I did this. I'm that idiot. So trust me, this will kill your business. And not only that, but that the time it's going to eat up is going to be massive and the stress over the whole situation is going to kill you. I know you need that money to eat. I know it's painful, but you have to give the money back. Because if you burn people, you're going to get a bad reputation. And anyone can see your reputation in a quick Google search. So in today's day and age, you must protect your reputation at all costs. And you must run your business with integrity. Even if it feels like you're going to make less money. It's actually the opposite. Running your business with integrity is how you grow your business. Because integrity and value are why people will say great things about you and it's why they will refer their friends. So you must win people over with integrity. It's the only way to succeed in business. So here's what you need to know. The customer is going to get all of their money back anyways. Period. You have no control over that and there is no way around it. All they have to do is file a chargeback with their bank and the money gets pulled from your account. And on Top of that, you get a big fine from your merchant account. And if you get too many chargebacks, you can lose your ability to take credit cards ever again. So that's the end of your business forever. So if a customer wants their money back, give it to them, wish them well, and then let it go. Because the energy spent over trying to hang on to that money, it'll never be worth it, no matter how much it is. Remember, the goal of your business is to move it forward and to grow. And if you're just starting your credit repair business, or if you're not sure how to handle these things, here's my advice. Your reputation is everything. Protect it. Communicate often with your clients and keep them in the loop on everything that's happening. Otherwise they won't have a clue what's happening and they will assume that you are doing nothing. So always over communicate and over deliver. And if they have an issue, make it very, very easy for them to communicate it to you. Don't hide from your clients, otherwise they'll file a chargeback. And even worse, they'll write terrible things online. And next, have a money back guarantee and honor it. You know, like a 30 day money back guarantee. Whatever it is, put it on your site and make it part of your pitch. And when you have a money back guarantee, that will result in more signups and more money in your pocket because more people will trust you. And finally, always, always, always give refunds. When asked if you're doing a good job and you're communicating well with your client, a refund is going to happen very, very rarely. But when it does happen, give them the money, wish them well, and grow your business on honesty and integrity. This really, really works. This is how I've grown our business in eight figures. And it's exactly why people trust us. And the same will apply to you because it's universal. Like I said, I made a ton of mistakes when I was starting my business, but this one was by far the worst. I would get so angry and I would waste so much time obsessing over this. And then finally one day I realized, what am I doing? This is hurting my business. And it's taken away all this time and energy and creating all these bad feelings. And then all of a sudden I let it go. And then I started giving refunds. You want your money, take it. And I started advertising a refund policy and honoring it. And guess what happened? My business grew because more people were willing to trust me and trust my business. And I know it's going to do the same for you. So don't look at the short term, okay? Look at the long road ahead of you. You only have one reputation, and that reputation is everything. In fact, it's the most valuable thing you have. I hope this information is helping my whole existence and what I do every day is to help people who are starting this business. It's so hard to find good information, so I want to provide that for you because we are all in this together. So if you're finding value in this podcast, please click below to subscribe and do me a huge favor and leave a review and rate me and let me know how I'm doing. This is a new podcast and I can use all the help I can get and I can't wait to see you on the next episode. And until then, keep changing lives. Want to fast track to creating an.

Amazing business that helps people, changes lives, and makes you a great living in the process? Then I'd like to invite you to my free online training@free creditrepaircloud.com freetraining in this free training you will learn how to get clients willing to pay you even if you're just starting out, how to get easy credit repair results without being an expert, and how to get all the clients you'll ever need without paying for advertising. Again, this training is absolutely free. Just visit creditrepaircloud.com freetraining.