Take control of chargebacks with Rainforest

Chargeback management challenges

Typically, embedded payment providers have been limited to one of two options:

The payment provider notifies merchants of chargebacks and merchants provide their response and supporting documentation to the payment provider, removing the software platform from the feedback loop. This can be tempting, but it creates a disjointed support experience and erodes the software company’s relationship with their merchants.
The payment provider notifies the platform of a chargeback, the platform notifies the merchant, the merchant provides their response and supporting documentation to the platform, who then forwards it to the payment provider. This has the benefit of keeping the platform as the sole point of contact for merchants, but it can feel like a game of “telephone”.

Rainforest has utilized option 2 because we believe software companies have the right to fully own their merchant relationships. However, the feedback from platforms is that it creates a lot of support tickets, both for the payment provider communicating with the software platform and the software platform communicating with merchants.

We hear you, and we agree. The new chargeback management experience is for you.

Chargeback management – modernized

The new chargeback management experience empowers merchants to self-serve, while software platforms can view and action all chargebacks for their merchants.

This puts the software platform in control of chargeback management, and makes it easy to right-size support for the situation.

In verticals where chargebacks are common and merchants are accustomed to responding, the platform can rely heavily on merchant self-service. In verticals where chargebacks are rare and merchants will likely need help, the platform can guide the merchant through the process or even submit the response on the merchant’s behalf.

How it works

Chargebacks are surfaced to merchants in both the embeddable payment report component and the new embeddable chargeback report component.

Clicking on the chargeback will open the new chargeback management component, where merchants can view the chargeback details and respond.

To reduce the support load on software platforms and help merchants win, we’ve built support right into the product. The embeddable chargeback management component shows:

Metadata if it’s available
Chargeback reason code and what it means
Specific guidance based on the type of chargeback
Suggested evidence based on the chargeback reason code
Explanation and requirements for each type of evidence when you click into it

We’ve also noticed that merchants have a higher likelihood of winning if they include a rebuttal letter, so we included guidance on what to include in a rebuttal letter.

Once the response is submitted, merchants can view the status of the chargeback and, if applicable, the expected date that funds will be returned to the merchant.

At Rainforest, we know that a winning merchant experience helps software platforms drive payments adoption, volume, and revenue. The new chargeback management component is fully embedded and intuitive to use.

We also understand that supporting payments can be daunting, so we anticipated the most common questions and answered them right in the component, minimizing the need for support.

For those times where merchants have questions, merchants and platforms see the same information and the same UX. Your support team can guide the merchant through the process or step in and action the chargeback on their behalf.

Simple to use. Simple to support.