Have you ever gotten into an argument with a customer over money? đĄ
Do you worry about refunds and chargebacks? đŹ
If youâre just starting your business, those two words can be terrifying. đ±
Thatâs why in this week's Podcast, I cover: how to handle angry customers when youâre just starting out, when to give refunds, the importance of avoiding chargebacks, protecting your reputation, and a whole lot more.
Now, what do you do with an angry customer?
I know we say âthe customer is always right,â but sometimes the customer is absolutely wrong.
They can be rude, pushy, and most of the time, it doesnât matter what you sayâŠ
Once the customer is angry, they will probably demand a refund.
Sometimes they refuse to pay for work youâve already done.
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 whyâŠ
If you have customersâŠ
Especially if you're in a service-based businessâŠ
It's your job to over-deliver value! đđđ
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.
Instead, stop and think about why that customer doesn't wanna pay you.
Early on in the first version of my business, 20 years ago, I was selling this little $20 download.
I had spent years making it and all my savings. I was invested financially and emotionally.
The only problemâŠwhen I tried to sell it, I was terrible at it!
In a good week, I was lucky if I could make a hundred dollars.
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 system yet. And I couldn't afford to hire someone to help me to do it. So I would just sit at home 24/7 and not go anywhere.
Then when a sale came in, I had all these bells and sirens that would go off, and that would happen at all hours of the day or night. 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. đ€đ€đ€
Because of that, I couldn't leave my house for the entire first year of the business. I didn't want customers to be upset over their order taking too long. So I literally didn't leave the house. Ever!
And that was a terrible way to live. Especially since sales didn't even happen every day, sometimes weeks would go by, and I'd only sell one $20 download. But there were a few times I had to leave the house to go to the grocery store or run a quick errand. And whenever I did that, that's when I would sell one. It never failed.
I would come home to emails from an angry customer who was upset that they had ordered a download 10 minutes earlier. And by the time I got home, they were already demanding a refund!
This happened all the time, and people would get so impatient. I assume 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.
Then there would be other people who would actually buy, install, and use my little download. And they'd ask for a refund! It wasn't a huge amount. It was only a $20 download, but it would make me crazy because I knew that they had used the software.
Those situations really hurt.
I couldn't refund it. I needed that money to eat. So I would do whatever I could to hang onto that money.
If a customer had a problem, I'd argue with them.
If they said they couldn't install it or it didn't work, I'd blame it on them.
I'm really embarrassed about this today. But at that time, I would do whatever I could to avoid giving them a refund. It only bought me a few extra days to keep their money, because all they had to do was file a chargeback with their bank, and they'd get all their money. So I wasn't really saving anything by acting this way.
I would spend days so angry and stressed, writing reports to try to outsmart the system and to win the chargebacks and get that money back.
That became my number one priority, to find ways around chargebacks and refunds. And that's all I thought about. 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, âlook, they accepted the package. Look, they signed for delivery, and they never returned it.â
And I was doing all that instead of working on my business.
I'm not proud of this.
As I said, I was just getting my business going, and I was doing what I had to to survive.
Looking back, I'm really embarrassed. I mean, at that time, I should have been thinking, âis it me? Am I doing something wrong? Is there something wrong with my product?â
My biggest mistake back then was that I wasn't trying to put myself in the customer's shoes or thinking about what the experience was like for them.
Had I actually stopped to put myself in my customer's shoes, I know I would've had success much, much faster.
Here's why this is important to youâŠ
Through all of this, I learned an important lesson. If a customer does not want to pay you, there might be a good chance that you are not delivering enough valueâŠ
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 overcommunicate.
Itâs normal to get a tiny number of refund requests!
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. So trust me, this will kill your business. 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.
If you burn people, you're going to get a bad reputation, and anyone can see your reputation in a quick Google search.
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 customers will say great things about you.
And it's why those customers 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 knowâŠ
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.
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.
And 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 onto 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 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 adviceâŠ
Your reputation is everything. Protect it, communicate with your clients often, 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 overcommunicate and over-deliver.
And if they have an issue, make it 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.
Next, have a money-back guarantee and honor it.
Have a 30-day money-back guarantee. Whatever it is, put it on your site and make it part of your pitch. When you have a money-back guarantee, you will get 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 clients. A refund is going to happen very rarely, but when it does happen, give them the money, wish them well and grow your business on honesty and integrity.
This really works!
This is how I've grown our business into eight figures. And it's exactly why people trust us and the same will apply to you because it's universal.
As 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, âwhat am I doing? This is hurting my business!â And it's taken away all this time and energy and created all these bad feelings. And then, all of a sudden, I let it go. And then I started giving refunds.
âYou want your money?â 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 gonna 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 in 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! đđđ
And If youâd like me to hold you by the hand as you launch your own credit repair business, check out our Credit Hero Challenge!!
Itâs an amazing program where youâll learn the processes that have made millionaires, and it costs less than you'll spend taking your family to McDonaldâs for dinner.
Weâve got another challenge starting in a few days, so grab your spot right now at CreditHeroChallenge.com!
Also, if you donât already have a Credit Repair Cloud account, check it out. Itâs the software that most Credit Repair businesses in America run on. Just sign up for a 30 day free trial at creditrepaircloud.com/freetrial
Until then, protect your reputation and donât fear the refundâŠ
Take care everybodyâŠ
And keep changing lives!