Representment: Respond to Chargebacks and Recover Revenue

Representment is your opportunity to dispute a chargeback. As part of the process of responding to a chargeback from the bank, you’ll provide evidence that the transaction was valid to recover revenue.

This process involves direct communication with the issuing bank and meticulous documentation, typically including proof of authorization and product delivery alongside further compelling evidence that overturns the original complaint. And it’s well worth it.

Benefits of contesting chargebacks

It’s far too easy for chargebacks to eat into your bottom line if they remain uncontested. Representment is also your opportunity to exercise your rights as a merchant and help ensure the integrity of the chargeback system.

• Retain revenue: Fighting unjustified chargebacks helps you retain hard-earned income. A strong chargeback management strategy paired with the right tools can deliver excellent return-on-investment (ROI), helping recover the maximum amount of revenue.
• Protect your reputation: Frequent successful chargebacks can damage your company’s reputation. Banks may begin to question the legitimacy of your operations if you aren’t fighting chargebacks with representment and trying to protect income.
• Gain valuable insight: Each chargeback attempt can help you learn more about your customers and your team’s interaction with the market. Collecting information on disputes also provides information you can use to help fight or prevent them in the future.

You can take a proactive approach to representment and fight chargebacks effectively. With the right tools and support on your side, there’s much to gain from contesting unjustified claims.

Effective representment

To effectively use representment to protect your business, you need to collect compelling evidence. Automation can go a long way towards this, especially for the type of card-not-present (CNP) transactions you’re likely to encounter. Efficiently combining information gathering with quick responses to disputes delivers effective results. This all comes down to a few factors.

• Accurate records: Maintain detailed record of customer interactions. This includes device IDs, geolocation, receipts, delivery confirmations, account information, and transactional data.
• Timely responses: Chargebacks require responses within a specific timeframe. Some payment processors may only offer a week, or less, for representment before closing a case.
• Clear communication: Inside that response window, you get to present your case. Make sure your response includes all required and relevant compelling evidence to avoid denial. Accuracy is paramount.

Representment is a critical defense mechanism against the challenges of chargebacks. By understanding the stakes and implementing robust management strategies, you can protect the revenue, reputation, and operations of your business.

Getting ahead of chargebacks

Representment isn’t your only defense, there are other methods and other tools at your disposal to help keep chargeback ratios low and maintain revenue. Prevention is well worth the investment in most cases.

• Keep customers informed: Put systems in place that allow customers to quickly verify previous transactions, including purchase dates and times. Preventing confusion surrounding unidentified transactions can reduce the number of claims and disputes.
• Customize your messaging: Use the insight gained from your customers and systems to transform your communications. Consider adding reminders of how to reach out or find information on your platform when you issue newsletters or statements.
• Empower customer service: Provide your team with the knowledge and training to handle disputes from customers who take the time to contact you through account portals or customer service instead of using the more costly chargeback and representment route.

This type of proactive stance keeps you in charge and builds trust and authority with your customers. The insights you gather and employ as part of your representment process can inform and even propel your business growth going forward.

How Kount handles chargebacks

Representment is just one part of a complete strategy for getting the best return on investment while protecting your business. We’ve got experience with detecting and preventing fraud at every phase of the transaction lifecycle, and our chargeback management is second to none. Automation with Kount takes much of the risk out of the equation and makes handling disputes much easier and far more efficient. Here’s just some of what we do.

• Reduce false positives: Accurately distinguish between fraudulent and legitimate transactions, stopping fraud before it starts and reducing unnecessary chargebacks.
• Enhance customer experience: Improve the checkout process by keeping the checks behind the scenes without any noticeable difference in speed.
• Advance notification networks: Our tools immediately get to work when an inquiry or chargeback dispute comes through, instead of relying on traditional notifications that can take weeks.
• Automated decision and response processes: Preventive measures stop fraud early, and chargeback management tools can gather compelling evidence and respond to inquiries or disputes in less than a second, not hours or days.

Putting the right tools in place delivers a serious advantage over fraudsters — and gives you a further competitive edge in your market. Don’t let unjustified chargebacks undermine your business. Learn more about our chargeback management solutions, or request a demo today to discover how we can fortify the representment process with seamless integration and rapid response.

Kount simplifies representment and empowers you with state-of-the-art tools to tackle chargebacks.