Dispute Management Software

Dispute management software is the best way to manage your disputes. It provides easy access and organization of your cases, allowing you to quickly find information when you need it most. It also allows for real-time collaboration between parties involved in an agreement so they can stay up-to-date on all changes as they happen. This article has provided some helpful tips on how to choose the right dispute management software vendor for your business needs!

In this guide, we review the aspects of Dispute Management Software, dispute management process, credit card dispute management system, and chargeback automation.

Dispute Management Software

Dispute Management Software, also known as Case Management Software, is a system that allows a company to manage and track disputes.

What is Dispute Management Software?

Dispute management software is a term that is used to refer to software that helps in managing disputes. The dispute resolution software can be used by the parties involved in a dispute, or it can be provided by an independent third party who facilitates the negotiation process.

There are four main types of dispute management software:

  • Dispute Management Software for Parties
  • Dispute Resolution Software for Parties
  • Mediation Software for Parties
  • Mediation Prevention Software

Dispute Management Software Features & Capabilities

Dispute management software is designed to streamline the entire dispute process. With this technology, you can manage disputes in multiple languages and currencies. For example, if a customer files a complaint in English and Spanish, the system will automatically translate it into French or Chinese so that your support team can read it without having to manually switch language settings.

What sets dispute management software apart from other solutions is its ability to integrate with many different systems at once—such as CRM software or CMS platforms—all while keeping track of all relevant data related to each case.

With this kind of comprehensive tool at your disposal, you’ll be able to drastically improve how your company manages complaints and quickly resolve any issues that arise throughout their lifecycle.

Finding the Right Dispute Management Software Vendor

You should look for a vendor that has a good reputation, and talk to other companies that have used the vendor. Make sure they offer a trial period so you can make sure it works well for your company. Look at customer reviews on the website or service provider’s business model and make sure their customer service team is responsive and helpful when you contact them with questions.

Another thing you should consider is how long they’ve been in business—if the company has been around for many years, then it’s likely that they are doing something right! Also look at their website; if there’s no information about their staff or leadership team, this could be an indication that there isn’t much transparency within the organization either (or worse yet: maybe there aren’t any employees!).

dispute management process

Unfortunately, it is a part of doing business. Clients are going to dispute invoices from time to time. That is why it is important to establish a dispute management resolution policy and process flow in accounts receivable. Doing so not only helps to maintain healthy cash flow, but also ensures that you get your invoice paid while preserving that client relationship. Here are some tips to help guide your account resolution team.

What is Dispute Management?

Dispute management in accounts receivable is the process of resolving invoice and billing statement discrepancies that arise. These invoice disputes can occur when a client, for whatever reason, decides they should not be responsible to pay an invoice.

If these disputes are not actively managed and resolved quickly, the amounts owed could easily hurt your company’s cash flow. In fact, for many businesses, a significant number of invoice disputes are simply written off as bad debt – often because the problem was not resolved in a timely manner.

Types of Invoice Disputes

Some common reasons clients might use to dispute an invoice include:

  • pricing dispute where the invoice amount is different than what the client thought they originally agreed to (whether they are correct or not).
  • A dispute over the quality of goods or services that did not meet your client’s expectations.
  • Dispute over product that was never received or has not been shipped.
  • Administrative errorswhere your finance department either invoiced the wrong amount or delivered the invoice in a way that does not comply the client’s billing instructions.
  • Similar to administrative error, the somewhat common double billing dispute arises when a good or service is invoiced twice.

Regardless of whether you or your client is “in the right”, your dispute management process flow should be setup to identify, manage, and resolve the issue quickly before that overdue invoice turns into bad debt.

Dispute Management Process Flow

Your accounts receivables collections team usually uncovers disputes only after making contact with a client regarding a past-due invoice. At that point once the dispute is discovered, the client might be referred to someone at your organization that has been assigned to dispute management cases.

From there, it is a good idea to log the dispute into a tracking system and then prioritize the case based on attributes such as the dispute reason, the amount in dispute, and the quality or longevity of the client relationship.

Obviously, the cause for dispute can vary widely, so each company will have a different process of investigating the reason and resolving the issue. But in most cases, the account resolution team will need to pull the necessary data (customer file, invoice, shipping documents, etc.) and possibly communicate with relevant stakeholders like the accounting department or warehouse manager.

Based on the information gathered and validity of the dispute, you will determine how to handle the issue and whether to try and collect in full or in part, refund the customer, or possibly write the debt off. Any or all of these resolutions may require approval.

The final step is to follow up with the customer and communicate the resolution.

How to Automate and Streamline Dispute Management

“Traditional” dispute resolution processes often involve manual, redundant tasks tracked in spreadsheets and hand-written notes that are prone to errors and inefficiencies. That is why companies are using Automated Accounts Receivable Management Software like Collect-IT.

With a powerful AR dashboard, customized collections strategies, and automated payment reminders, Collect-IT not only proactively manages client invoices and payments, it also helps to uncover invoice disputes quickly before they become a problem. And with everything from invoice details and client history, to accounting and credit policies all in one centralized location, your dispute management team will have everything they need to resolve cases quickly.

credit card dispute management system

Our online case management solution allows you to review, respond and manage all of your chargeback and retrieval activity.

Drive greater efficiency with technology

Our online case management solution streamlines the chargeback management process by making it easier for staff to respond to requests through an online portal. Since the portal supports the ability to prioritize chargeback cases based on key factors, you can respond quickly and reduce the number of write-offs, saving time and money. Our chargeback management system features a daily summary of case activity and automated alerts. You set the preferences for your alerts whether it is new chargeback and retrieval cases, status updates, high value amounts and/or case aging. Additionally, our chargeback management system features a broad selection of reports to manage your activities and measure your results.

Improve chargeback management with case visibility

Dynamically organize your chargeback management workflow to manage cases while meeting regulatory deadlines. Automated email notifications and alerts inform you when chargeback cases are above a particular dollar amount, reach certain points in the aging process or when additional information is required. Create files and assign cases based on a variety of attributes – from reason codes and card types – to the age of cases or transaction amounts. Prioritize cases based on various factors such as potential to be defended and the amount of the chargeback. Assign work queues based on staffs’ knowledge or experience of the chargeback management process. Create your own response templates to improve efficiencies and shorten the response process.

Comprehensive reporting for efficient chargeback dispute management

Our chargeback management system offers a broad selection of reports to provide full visibility and help effectively manage your chargeback dispute case activities. Reports can range from a single listing to a specific filtered report by date, location, card type, case ID and many other criteria. You can drill down further into a specific chargeback case for a detailed look at the history, including actions taken and results achieved. Online case management enables you to export report data to other enterprise systems, or for offline analysis and distribution.

Simplify chargeback management with a single portal

Access your chargeback and retrieval activity from anywhere. Gain the tools you need to manage dispute cases throughout their lifecycle.

Define custom work queues and activity views based on your business needs

Create your own response templates that yield the best results for your business

Upload supporting case documentation, such as receipts, in a variety of formats

Export data to use in other enterprise systems

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chargeback automation

The twin tragedy of the loss of revenue and merchandise is only the beginning of how card not present fraud chargebacks impact merchants. The actual cost is humongous. Several studies have shown that for every $100 in chargebacks, your actual chargeback cost is $240 in wasted time, expensive fees, penalties, or additional losses of goods and services.

Understanding why chargebacks happen and mitigating them is crucial. Why? You will refocus your resources on meeting metrics that matter the most. And, an informed fraud mitigation strategy helps to give your customers a better buying experience while reducing abandoned carts.

So, is automated chargeback management the game changer? Or is it another marketing gimmick? 

The best place to start in helping you learn how automated chargeback management enhances your chargeback mitigation is to give you valuable insights into the causes and origins of chargebacks.

Why do chargebacks happen?

Tracking down why the chargeback happened is crucial as it helps you address the problem from the root cause. And chargeback reason codes give you a headstart in this direction. 

In e-commerce parlance, chargeback reason codes are the alphanumeric codes that issuing banks give merchants to help them identify the reason for the dispute. Although chargeback reason codes could be misleading at times, they help you ferret out the reason for the dispute and strategize accordingly. 

Chargebacks can be sculpted into three major categories.

The first category is chargebacks caused by merchant or customer errors — such as clerical mistakes. 

The second category is criminal fraud, which is chief among chargeback reason codes. In this case, a cardholder is disputing an unauthorized transaction. 

The final category goes with the fancy-pants name “friendly fraud.” In essence, a cardholder is trying to play smart by taking advantage of loopholes in the chargeback system to commit online shoplifting.

Now, each of the above classifications embodies distinct chargeback reason codes. And each of those distinct chargebacks also has various causes and solutions.

Below are some common sources you should bear in mind:

How do you automate a chargeback? 

Having cleared the air on some of the sources and causes of chargebacks, let’s look at how to automate a chargeback to win more cases.

Outside of you doing the heavy lifting yourself (which is a no-no), there are different options in the market for handling your chargebacks. Each of these tools and strategies has its merits and demerits. And we shall evaluate that in this section to help you make an informed decision.

Option 1: Outsourcing your chargeback mitigation

Without question, chargebacks are now a huge problem that keeps getting bigger and harder to control every day. The burden of proof on the merchant to present compelling evidence that demonstrates why the chargeback should be overturned is overwhelming. 

Outsourcing your chargeback mitigation to a specialist vendor can help you ensure that fraudulent cases aren’t slipping through the cracks. The vendor will monitor and manage those chargebacks for you.

The benefits? First, your cases are in the hands of experts who understand the rudiments of the game better than you do. That can mean more cases won on your behalf. And you also get to save your workforce time and efforts that would’ve been spent on the uphill battle. 

The downside could be that you pay a little higher for that professional service. You also can’t control how the process pans out, and you could risk potential business relationships at the expense of winning cases.

Option 2: Onboarding chargeback management software

Here’s where the actual chargeback automation happens. You subscribe to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) that automatically manages your chargebacks without you lifting a finger. 

The caveat is, not all chargeback automation tools are built equal. The industry is flooded with marketers promising you sunshine and rainbows but making the right choice is the key. And you should know that Chargeflow is the leading fully automated dispute and chargeback management system there is.

Using automated chargeback management for your e-commerce store saves you a huge amount of time and resources, especially in these uncertain times. Automated chargeback management gives you flexibility and control over the entire process. Instead of on-boarding multiple programs to fully manage different assets, chargeback automation gives you a single program that uses high-end fraud protection to eliminate the impact of chargebacks on your store.

In addition, automated chargeback management removes barriers to data and insights. That data puts you on top of your customer’s buying patterns, with tips to lower your dispute rate and take your chargeback win-rate to a whole new level. 

The cons? Well, depending on who you work with, there could be incidents of inconsistent performance. And you could also spend more time and effort on managing the software.

Option 3: Hybrid chargeback mitigation solution

The term “hybrid” is popular these days, and in this case, it means that you aren’t using a fully automated chargeback system. The program is neither fully managed nor SaaS.

You chose to onboard a SaaS package for tools that look like less headache and outsource the tough ones to a specialist company. 

People often confuse this approach with automated chargeback mitigation, but they aren’t the same. The difference is that while a fully automated chargeback handles the entire process without you lifting a finger, the hybrid doesn’t do that. You manage your chargeback systems to find transactions and chargebacks to dispute while relying on a full-service company to handle the actual disputes.

The benefits include that you have some level of control and flexibility. But on the other hand, using the hybrid option means that you have more tools, and managing and coordinating them with partner programs can be difficult.

More so, you might need to onboard more than one program, which means that your team has additional bills to manage.

Metrics for choosing a chargeback automation system

By any checklist, Chargeflow stands out from all other chargeback mitigation tools in the market. And it should be top of mind for this subject.

Any chargeback automation solution you onboard has to make sense, not just for you but also the customer; you don’t want to sacrifice your customer’s buying experience for fraud protection. In that regard, pay attention to the following key attributes of a good chargeback automation service.

Ability to mitigate frauds

Fraud detection is crucial. And any service that does not help you identify the user or a fraudulent behavior isn’t worth the time invested in writing the codes. You should have the option to track suspicious transactions before they happen. You should also compare the billing address to the address on file for the payer’s account. With this approach, you can quickly decline potential high-risk transactions. If you don’t have the option to ascertain the person making the transaction with Address Verification Services, it’ll be tough to debate chargeback disputes.

Credit Card Verification code and blacklist

Every credit card has a card security code popularly known as CVV2, CVC2, CID, etc., and this program helps verify the buyer inputted the correct code for their credit card. A wrong code is a potential fraud red flag and enables you to avoid unauthorized transactions. 

Equally crucial is a blacklist option that gives you a valuable database of customers who have filed a chargeback dispute. Synchronizing that with your customer relationship management tool can help you isolate and stop suspicious transactions. A good chargeback automation service should have this option to allow you to blacklist suspicious transactions based on past behavior.

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