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I run a time management app with a monthly subscription model that gives users the freedom to cancel whenever they feel like so. Normally if a customer cancels at the beginning of the month after they get charged, they receive a full refund for that month, no questions asked.

Yesterday I received an angry email from a Michael (Not his real name of course) who claims I didn't refund him. I look up Michael's account information and find out that he has, indeed, received a full refund.

Upon informing Michael of this, he insists he still hasn’t received his money.

Now it's getting really confusing, and of course I don't want to accuse him of anything, or communicate in any way that might sound like I'm saying that he's not being honest with me. Maybe there's a delay from his bank in showing the refund, I really don't know.

So I'm asking what's the best way to communicate with Michael in an email format and if there's anything I can do to help.

onprofessionalism
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    How long ago did this happen? As annoying as it can be, not all such transactions happen instantly, even if your logs say they have completed. –  Jun 25 '18 at 15:23
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    @Kozaky borrowing on that question, are the subscriptions by credit cards? I know businesses tend to send bulk transactions to the credit card company in a set interval and from there, it can still take 3-5 days before it shows up. It might take upwards of a week or two before it shows up on the card. So if you don't know, did you check with your manager to see how many days before the customers would see a refund on his card? – Dan Jun 25 '18 at 16:18
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    If it's appropriate to share, what is the amount of money in question, or perhaps better yet: what percentage of (monthly) income does this amount represent? – John Doe Jun 25 '18 at 20:17
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    If you explain the process of refund issuance it will help get wise answers. Do you use the stripe.com dashboard to reverse a particular credit card transaction? Do you use some other technique to do the same? Do you write a check to your customer and send it by post? – O. Jones Jun 26 '18 at 10:10
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    Does the payment processor give you a transaction number, date and time when you do a refund? That would help a lot. If they give you any (vendor-specific) guidance on how many days to allow, that's useful to pass on too: " processed refund request for on . Please allow n days for this, and contact first if there is any issue." If customers consistently tell you that a specific vendor processes slower than their guidance, then modify the guidance you give. – smci Jun 26 '18 at 21:02
  • What country are you and the customer in ? What payment system do you use for refunds ? Lastly consider approaching the question from the other direction - how would you track the refund to it's recipient ? – StephenG - Help Ukraine Jun 27 '18 at 01:21
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    Whether this is by credit card is IMPORTANT. Please include this in your question. I seem to recall being told by customer service representatives that refunds to credit cards can sometimes take 30 days (effectively a billing cycle), if not more. – user541686 Jun 27 '18 at 03:30
  • Possibly related - I got double charged by a restaurant on my credit card due to their mistake. After phoning the manager etc, they refunded the amount. It took four days before the refund appeared in my credit card account. – Reversed Engineer Jun 27 '18 at 08:45
  • Do you have any superiors? Have you discussed this with them? – jpmc26 Jun 27 '18 at 14:14
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    I just want to thank you for taking the time to get this right. I am less angry now that I see the work you are putting into it. –  Jun 27 '18 at 21:18
  • Another day, another question closed for no apparent reason. The actual question is right there at the end. Did they flag it for lacking a question mark? Did they not even bother to read it? –  Jul 07 '18 at 19:57

5 Answers5

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First thing to do is double check and make certain that you issued the refund on your end. You say that his account says he has been refunded, but also go and find the actual bank transaction to be sure the money has left your own accounts. At that point you know you have done everything correctly, even if the bank has not.

Second, share with Michael as much information as you are able, in as much detail as possible.

Our records indicate that on June 5, 2018 a refund of $53.42 was issued to the credit card account ending in 1234.

It's quite possible that Michael is looking at the wrong account, or the date of the refund is recent enough that it hasn't arrived yet. Give him the benefit of the doubt by telling him as much as you can so you know you're both on the same page.

If he still believes there is an issue, offer to contact the bank who made the transaction. Verify with them that the money left your account and went to the correct destination account. If you want to be proactive, you could even take this step before your first response to Michael.

Once they have verified that the transaction has been completed correctly, you can go back to Michael to say that the bank (a neutral third party) has verified that the refund was properly issued. At that point there is nothing more you can do, but Michael is welcome to reach out to the bank to determine what has happened, and you can of course offer to supply any information he needs.

David K
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    +1 - Also - if possible, automate the transaction auditing process to generate these kinds of reports. – Wesley Long Jun 25 '18 at 15:41
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    Two very important rules of customer support: 1) stick to the facts and 2) get your facts straight! – corsiKa Jun 25 '18 at 16:25
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    Ask the bank to confirm what transaction ID the refund was processed with & have the bank (not you) share this detail with the customer – user2813274 Jun 25 '18 at 17:10
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    Note there is not "a bank", as onprofessionalism bank is probably a different one than Michael's one, and the money may have been "lost" (er… delayed) moving between them. – Ángel Jun 25 '18 at 23:39
  • It also depends on how the refund is processed, and whether all the parties are forwarding the right data to do a refund. You're not paying their bill, but doing a refund on a specific transaction. Any mismatched number and the credit card company may have to process it manually, if they do not outright reject it. And even if they reject it, then they have to reverse the money transaction... it's actually very very complicated if you get the data wrong. – Nelson Jun 26 '18 at 10:42
  • Also bear in mind that your may have been the victim of identity theft and the refund ended up in the hands of the thief. In that situation you would need to escalate, possibly to legal, and report the incident to loss prevention. – John Wu Jun 27 '18 at 07:22
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Normally if a customer cancels at the beginning of the month after they get charged, they receive a full refund for that month, no questions asked.

It would help if you were to be more specific about what you mean by "refund".

I look up Michael's account information and find out that he has, indeed, received a full refund.

WRONG! All your account information has is records of payments you have made, not what payments other people have received. If you deposited money in Michael's bank account, you have no idea whether his bank has posted the transaction. One of the most annoying ways for a customer service representative start a sentence is a variation of "Our records indicate". For instance, I had a customer service representative repeatedly say to me "Our records indicate that you cancelled your account", and all requests for them to explain how they came to "record" that were met with just repeating that claim. I don't care what "your records indicate", do you have any documentation of the event? You can "record" a refund to Michael all you want, but how is that supposed to help Michael?

In customer service, and really in life in general, it's important to be precise in your language. Don't tell a customer he has received a refund. Tell him your system has processed the refund, and give all the documentation you have on the transaction. Things like how long the transaction takes to complete is information you should have, and if you don't know it, you should contact whoever you sent the money through to find out. If this takes more than a few hours, you should send Michael an email describing what you're doing to look into it.

Acccumulation
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    I don't understand what distinction you are trying to make between a record of a transaction and 'documentation of the event', in a world where most transactions are only recorded electronically. – Pete Kirkham Jun 27 '18 at 14:56
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    @PeteKirkham The OP was treating the fact that their internal records show that the customer received a refund as equivalent to them receiving a refund. "Our database has this transaction flagged 'refunded'" is technically speaking documentation, but it's quite different from "We have this data on an ACH transaction". – Acccumulation Jun 27 '18 at 15:51
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what's the best way to communicate with Michael in an email format

Don't. Pick up the phone. With this sort of thing, the personal touch goes a long way to improving things.

Philip Kendall
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    "How do I X?" "Don't, do Y instead" is not an answer to "How do I do X." This is independent of whether or not I agree with the suggestion. – corsiKa Jun 25 '18 at 16:25
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    Personally I hate, hate, hate communicating by phone. I can’t explain why but I consistently have trouble understanding the interlocutor, even in my native language (and my hearing is impeccable according to the GP). I never pick up the phone if a business calls me. Please contact me via email exclusively. – Konrad Rudolph Jun 25 '18 at 16:26
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    That's kind of subjective. As the customer, I would much rather conduct this kind of communication via a method that left at least some kind of paper trail, and if the company insisted on speaking to me on the telephone, I'd be at least a little suspicious. Of course, it's fair to offer the customer the choice to either speak directly or carry on via email. – delinear Jun 25 '18 at 16:27
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    @corsiKa We very frequently have questions on The Workplace where "Don't do that!" is the correct response. See this discussion on Meta. – David K Jun 25 '18 at 16:31
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    This is why most companies ask how you could LIKE to be contacted - so that it's not the companies preference on how to contact the customer, but the customers preference. Don't assume the customer thinks like you - because you're wrong. – UKMonkey Jun 25 '18 at 16:42
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    @corsiKa I'll have to disagree as well on a minor point: Sometimes the best answer is the answer that's unasked... I've answered more than a few questions with "This is what you are asking... but aren't you REALLY asking this instead?" - not saying that's the case here (a Phone call instead of an email is questionable - a phone call IN ADDITION to emails on the other hand...) but the right answer sometimes isn't the answer to the asked question. My 2c. – WernerCD Jun 25 '18 at 16:45
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    @DavidK I'll concede that there is a philosophy on workplace.se for such answers, however this answer fails to meet the criteria set forth in that meta discussion, specifically identifying the what part of the premise of the question is wrong and why it is wrong. "How can I harass my secretary without getting in trouble?" would be a question that has an invalid premise - I'd be shocked with any answer other than "Don't do that!" - this question has no invalid premises - only differences of opinion on how to communicate. – corsiKa Jun 25 '18 at 16:48
  • @WernerCD I agree that sometimes you're right. Stack Exchange isn't perfect - sometimes we follow the rules and that results in not the most helpful content to a particular question in exchange for having a system that results in the most helpful content overall. Welcome to life. – corsiKa Jun 25 '18 at 16:49
  • See also: XY problem – 0xFEE1DEAD Jun 25 '18 at 18:24
  • @corsiKa the Help Center doesn't set as high a standard. The guidance there reads: "Read the question carefully. What, specifically, is the question asking for? Make sure your answer provides that – or a viable alternative. The answer can be “don’t do that”, but it should also include “try this instead”. Any answer that gets the asker going in the right direction is helpful, but do try to mention any limitations, assumptions or simplifications in your answer." [Source] I think this question meets that standard at least. – Lumberjack Jun 25 '18 at 20:21
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    @Lumberjack The question here essentially boils down to "what can I say to Michael and how can I say it professionally?" Saying to use the phone instead of email doesn't answer the first point at all, and barely touches on the second. There is a potential answer here, along the lines of assuring the customer you're giving it your personal attention with the utmost urgency, but it needs to be fleshed out a lot more to be of any use. – Xono Jun 26 '18 at 00:06
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    What could go wrong ? Use phone get insulted, Keep calm and explain every thing. Customer now contact the company by an other way claiming that you did call him to treath him. Either the call was recorded and you didn't tell him, or you recorded him with out his concent or even a notification. Never underestimate a Customer. This could end up on tv – Drag and Drop Jun 26 '18 at 10:01
  • The only real problem with this answer is that it assumes calling on the phone is always practical. The fact is that email is not a good format for a dispute, which is what this is. Email has been tried, and so far has been unsuccessful. Also, some commenters are implying that the question completely excludes a non-email solution, but that's not true. The FULL sentence includes the second part "...and if there's anything I can do to help." Getting on the phone is definitely something you could do to help. – barbecue Jun 26 '18 at 17:41
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The best customer service would be to reissue the refund via Paypal or writing a check to the customer. Your email could say, "sorry your refund did not go through correctly. I will send you a check or a Paypal payment, whichever you prefer. Please let me know how to send it."

For individual subscription products such as yours, this costs you FAR less than investigating the banking system to find out what happened. It also contributes to your reputation as being easy to do business with.

For this customer the principle of the thing is the $20 for his subscription. For you the principle of the thing is (should be) always leaving your users smiling. That's worth the small loss. The accounting category is "uncollectible debt".

If people start abusing your generosity, you can always rethink this. But, experience says they probably won't.

(For what it's worth: At the SaaS place where I work, switching to stripe.com for subscription payment processing gave us really good tools for handling this kind of exception in a traceable way. They even send an official-sounding email to the customer acknowledging the refund transaction. It wasn't worth our trouble to build our own exception handling tools because exceptions are so rare.)

O. Jones
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I particularly like David K's answer. I suggest you follow his advice. I'd like to add one more thing to it.

Show sympathy. Cooperate. Offer to look into the problem. If there is any chance of the problem being on your side, offer compensation. A happy customer, even a happy ex-customer is most likely going to cost you far less than an angry one leaving bad reviews all over the place.

And most of all do not blame your customer, even if you think they are making the mistake. Remember Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Bottom line: be kind and understanding, even if the fault lies with your customer or with their bank. You have a business, your good name is important.

Belle
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