Handling Refunds
If you're selling ebooks on the Internet then it won't be long until you discover the cold hard truth about returns. The return rate for ebooks is much higher than for other products. In a moment you're going to find out why, and what you can do to minimize your returns.
When a customer makes an online purchase of a physical product, there's an effort involved with returning the product. First they must find the original packaging, then get themselves a shipping box, find out the mailing address for them to ship back the product, pay for postage and insurance, drive to the post office and wait in line if the package won't fit in a mailbox), and so on. Because of the "hassle factor" many would often opt not to return a low priced product. And in many cases people don't pursue a return simply because they threw away their original product packaging, or they cannot find it.
The return rate for ebooks is much higher than for physical products purchased online. This is simply because ebooks are "easy" to return. All that is required by the customer is a quick email asking for a refund. To add to the problem of excessive returns, many dishonest people who are 100% happy with the product will also ask for a refund, thinking to themselves, "Hey, the product is already installed on my PC, why don't I just fire off a quick email to request my money back? Who's to know I'm still going to use and enjoy the product?"
Returns are an ugly business. After all, who wants to spend their energies giving money back, especially to people who are often rude? Large mail order companies send their CSRs ("Customer Service Reps") off to attend seminars, conferences and workshops that teach CSRs how to deal with the psychological negativity of working day to day with customer returns. The fact is that customers who are 100% happy with a product don't pick up the telephone to tell the company all about it. Instead, the CSRs only hear from the unhappy customers, day in and day out.
There's some good news. Businesses selling on the Internet can easily automate many procedures such that they'll have minimal dealings with the negativity of returns. By using and automating a "Refund Authorization Procedure," the customer will do the majority of steps required for a refund. The company's role is minimal: just issuing the actual credit.
With the proper ebook authoring software you can set up a refund strategy that will minimize your return rate. You can do this by requiring customers to "uninstall" the ebook from their PC before you issue them a refund. This is called "refund authorization." Sounds simple? It is, thanks to the features offered in HyperMaker.
Here's an example of how a refund authorization scheme could be setup. (1) First, the customer emails the company requesting a refund. (2) The company replies by directing them to a special webpage that explains the refund procedure. (3) Following this procedure, the customer then does the required ebook uninstall from their PC. (4) Once the uninstall is complete, a special code appears on the screen. (5) The customer writes down this code, and emails it to the company. (6) Finally, once the company receives the customer's email containing a valid refund authorization code, they issue a credit to the customer's account.
When you do get a refund request, and the customer has confirmed that they have uninstalled the ebook via your refund authorization procedure, you should credit them promptly, and then email them a confirmation. Don't procrastinate. You don't want people running to their credit card company crying "Chargeback" especially after you've gotten this far into the refund process with them. Just issue the credit quickly, get closure on it, and get on with your other business tasks.
Before planning a refund strategy, you should know how HyperMaker locks and protects publication content (HTML pages). To set a useful refund system, you must use the proper publication protection.
To protect your publication with a fixed password would be useless, because the user will be able to install the publication in as many computers as he wants, so he can get a refund, and continue using the publication in other computer. The password must be based on a unique number that allows the publication to only run on a specific computer.
The basic steps are:
After doing a refund the publication will fall back into unregistered mode, so the user will not be able to access to any locked page.
To implement the refund system you must include a REFUND link in some page in your publication,
using the REFUND macro.
A macro is keyword that is used into a link. Example:
<A HREF="REFUND=Refundpage.htm">Click here to unregister this publication and get a refund key.</A>
As soon the link is clicked the publication will fall back to unregistered mode.
The publication could not be registered against in the same computer, unless you compile it under a different publication title, so advice your users clearly about that they cannot undo a refund. May be you can place a link to a page explaining clearly what a refund means, and place the REFUND macro at the bottom of this page, so you user will not click it mistakenly.
Why put a refund method in someone's face? It may give people ideas. So instead, you can hide the refund code page anywhere in your publication. Then, if someone wants a refund you can instruct him to click on a secret hotspot in the document, to reach the refund section of the publication.
Alternatively, you can compile a second publication (with exactly the same title), put on it the refund macro and send it to your user.
The REFUND macro
also will open the page specified after the equal sign, which
we will call the refund page.
In this page you can put the text you want, and also a special
code that will show a refund success code, that the user must
send you.
If you received a valid refund code that means that the publication
was successfully uninstalled.
To show the refund code into the refund page you must use an INCLUDE keyword, like this:
<!--#Refund-->
You can place this key inside a table cell or format it as you want. Your user could be able to copy easily the code, so he can email it you.
The refund code is a 12 digits number, generated by combining
the publication title + user name + secret editor key + I.D. key
(if used), so it will be different for each user.
The secret editor key is a unique key that will be assigned you
when you buy HyperMaker. This key will keep your publication secure.
No other people will be able to generate registration keys or
refund codes for your publication, because none will know your
secret key.
To check is the refund code is correct click Open users database on Registration menu; then, select the row where the registration details for your user are located and click the refund button. You will be able to paste the refund code you get from your user, so HyperMaker can corroborate if the code is valid.
The PHP script provided to HyperMaker customers can generate online refund codes automatically.
If you have not stored the user registration data in the Users database, just add a record and fill in the User name, Publication Title and I.D. key fields, before generating the refund code.