ForumsAdvertising, Sales and Marketing

BuynSell, yes always room for improvement -- as I said, admirable management on your part. To answer your follow-up question, no I don't advocate the use of a collections agency, and most small businesses I work with concur.

My initial advice to retail clients with high chargebacks is to be easily reachable by customers with problems. The Customer Service address, phone number, and e-mail needs to be clearly displayed on the website, in catalogs, and on receipts or invoices - and someone needs to be there answering the phone and responding to e-mails. If the customer has a problem and they can't immediately reach the retailer to resolve it, they call the credit card 800 number and dispute the charge next. Just being reachable is enough to get chargebacks down to a reasonable percentage (which yours already are, compared to the rest of the industry). I advise that the remaining chargebacks be handled in house, with e-mail reminders, letters, or telephone calls as appropriate (and as others have already suggested).

The only retail clients I have that utilize collection agencies are big box stores. None of my small business clients do for two reasons: First, there are too many problems within the collection industry itself (abusive agents, unethical methods, outdated records, accounts that are sold and resold), and retailers with a solid reputation are quick to recognize that the fallout from one agent's stupid actions could cost them far more than they stand to gain. Second, it's usually not an effective place to focus management time and energy. I'm sure you have an excellent operation, but I'd guarantee than any competent business consultant in this community could do a walk-through and find more than $5K in waste or inefficiencies without even looking too hard -- because we're only talking about one-fifth of one percent. Yes, always room for improvement, yet as an owner or senior manager, I might be inclined to focus my attention on one of those areas where measured performance is not nearly as good.

Either way, I respect the fact that you're actively trying to do what you feel is necessary to increase your profits, and I wish you the best.

I don't understand why you don't have a receipt when you ship something out to a customer. If you go to the the post office you can fill out a form for a signed return receipt and they will give you your copy with a tracking number. When the customer receives the package they will have to sign for it and the signed receipt will go back to you. I realize it will cost you more money, but you'll have to take that into consider when pricing your products. As for damaged items not being returned to you; do you have a policy in place that tells your customers that in order to get credit, they must return the item? Some companies require that the item being returned be insured. Do you provide your customers with a mailing label?