We’re all buying online these days. Ecommerce and digital purchases have exploded, with consumers purchasing everything from groceries and clothing, to household items and entertainment online.
A plethora of new retailers has popped up to satisfy the demand for ecommerce, which was, of course, massively intensified by the pandemic. In June 2021 alone, ecommerce was up 8.3% year-over-year. This presents something of a double-edged sword. On one hand, consumers have a bevy of options for quality, pricing, shipping and other factors. On the other, they are doing more business with lesser-known brands of undetermined reputations. As a result, credit union card issuers are now wrestling with a series of issues related to the ever-widening digital shopping sphere.
Unfamiliar Retailers, Supply Chain Issues and Rising Fraud Lead to More Chargebacks and Disputes
The first of these issues is an increase in the number of member requests for transaction reversals. There are a few root causes for this uptick. Chief among them is an unrecognizable merchant name in a member’s list of transactions. Especially with the expansion of social media retailers that market impulse buys, it’s easy to see why this is happening more often.
Another cause is related to global supply chain issues. Online merchants, like many of their mainstay brick-and-mortar counterparts, are having trouble fulfilling orders in a timely fashion. Waiting much longer than anticipated for a package can prompt a member to seek resolution from their credit union.
Then, of course, there is legitimate payments fraud, which is occurring at higher-than-normal levels – a common occurrence during times of chaos. Account takeover fraud, detected by the member, describes one common set of inquiries to the credit union member service center. Scams, in which the member was either tricked or persuaded into sending money to a fraudster, describe another. And those two circumstances merely scratch the surface of the inbound fraud calls credit unions and their contact center partners are fielding today.
Meeting Member Expectations for Swift Resolution
While credit unions and their payment processors may be able to anticipate some of these circumstances, the average cardholder does not. When an unanticipated pain related to a credit union-issued card strikes, members expect a swift resolution. Right or wrong, they demand help will come fast and complete inside of an experience that bolsters feelings of appreciation, belonging and personalized care.
Aside from the direct financial losses of chargebacks, credit unions must also devote an incredible number of hours to managing transaction reversals. Handling them in a member-centric way that prioritizes human-to-human engagement takes even further investment. What’s more, these are hours that could be spent coaching a member through the mortgage process, finding the right college finance solution for a child or helping navigate the ongoing economic stressors of COVID-19.
Simplifying the Traditionally Complex Disputes Process
To help credit unions meet already high member expectations for help in chargeback situations, CO-OP Financial Services has completely reengineered its disputes and chargebacks process. The new CO-OP Resolution Center dramatically simplifies and improves the traditionally complex system, ensuring that payments, even when bumpy, continue to be the best path to primary financial relationships.
Among the benefits credit union debit card and credit card issuers experience inside the new CO-OP Resolution Center are:
- Streamlined case initiations
- Accelerated resolutions
- Real-time case insights
- Expanded cardholder communication options
A Fully Integrated Hub for All Credit Unions, Regardless of Processor or Card Brand
Adding to CO-OP’s continually evolving payments platform, the CO-OP Resolution Center combines the best of human talent and technology capabilities, centralizing a digitally integrated management system.
Some of the software features credit unions will enjoy from the cloud-based end-to-end system are…
- A digital, intelligently designed intake form that guides the credit union or CO-OP Contact Center agent through the initial cardholder call, in most cases eliminating the need for callbacks.
- A real-time activity and status queue that provides insights into case status.
- A self-service portal that creates a faster path to issuing provisional credit and resolving cases.
- Extensive activity reporting, including executive summaries and daily transactions.
Serving as a fully integrated hub, the platform tracks every point of both non-fraud and fraud dispute and chargeback processes, from case initiation through investigation, engagement and decisioning of disputes – through to closure.
Marrying Technology and Compassion to Elevate the Cardholder Experience
At the end of the day, the platform is about giving credit unions the peace of mind that they are elevating the cardholder experience, even during otherwise strenuous moments. CO-OP’s Chief Revenue Officer Matt Kardell put it best when he said, “Spotting something suspicious on their accounts can be incredibly upsetting for credit union members, especially amid high incidents of data breach exposures and identity theft cases. CO-OP’s Resolution Center is the ideal marriage of technology and compassion, capable of quickly restoring cardholder confidence in the safety of their cards and their overall financial security.”
To learn more about CO-OP Resolution Center contact us at solutions@coop.org.
The original article Reduce Fraud and Boost Member Experience with CO-OP Resolution Center can be found on Insight Vault.