How do you prevent chargebacks?

I'm sitting down for this one, because this is serious: preventing chargebacks.

Chargebacks are painful. And if you don't know, a chargeback is when someone paid for something, you have received funds, and then the client or the buyer decides they didn't want it or they're dissatisfied and they dispute the charge with their bank or their credit card company.

So how do you prevent chargebacks? How do you fight them? I'm going to tell you.

Just watch the video below, or scroll down to read more!

So preventing chargebacks and fighting chargebacks are kind of two different things. But I'm going to talk about both.

Steps to fight chargebacks before they happen

Step 1: Make sure your refund policy is super clear.

The best and clearest way to fight a chargeback is to make sure your refund policy abundantly clear. Now, yes, you should absolutely have terms and conditions on your website that someone agrees to.

➡️ And by the way, they should agree to those terms and conditions before they buy.

But in addition to the terms and conditions, it’s a good idea to put your very clear refund policy somewhere conspicuous, so that the client can't see they never saw it. I'm a big fan of checkout bullet points. (Aka having bullet points that the person can see right around where they click submit or purchase.) That's so much better than just hiding your refund policy in your terms and conditions.

Step 2: Make sure your buyer or client agrees to terms and conditions before buying

I've already kind of said this, but making sure your buyer agrees to terms and conditions before buying is key.

Step 3: Make sure your offer — what you’re delivering — is clear

Make the details of your offer abundantly clear. There should be no confusion over what your buyer or your client is getting. What’s included? What’s not included?

Step 4: Don’t make promises you can’t keep (or — heaven forbid — guarantees!)

Don't over-promise and under-deliver. Dissatisfaction with services is actually grounds for a chargeback under the Fair Credit Billing Act. So if they're dissatisfied:

if they thought you were going to do X, Y, and Z, and you didn’t; or

you didn't do a good job; or

you didn't fulfill what you said you were going to do.

…These are valid reasons for a chargeback under the law.

Step 5: Update your Standard Operating Procedures

The first thing a bank or credit card company will do in the face of a disputed charge is ask for supporting documentation. So… you have to have documentation to give them!

So add evidence collection to your SOPs. (This is something that you can hand off to your VA if you like!)

This means basically capturing evidence of each buyer, the email address the person used, and the metadata that goes along with it when they purchased (IP address, etc.).

Avoiding chargebacks all together? It could be as simple as this…

Finally, in terms of avoiding chargebacks altogether, knock it out of the frickin’ park. Do a good job. Deliver what you said you were going to deliver.

That will help you to get raving fans; and that will help to reduce your chargeback rate. It's a win-win.

So I hope that this gives you a better understanding on how to fight chargebacks and how to prevent chargebacks from happening in the first place.