Our support team is drowning because we never defined what qualifies for refunds.
Someone says the app isn’t what they expected vs someone who actually can’t log in. We’re handling these the same way and it’s messy.
How do you draw that line?
Make two buckets. Tech problems? Instant refund, no questions. Not happy with the app? They need to show you exactly what in your store description doesn’t match what they got. Most people won’t bother since they can’t find anything specific. Cuts refund requests in half and your support team stops spinning their wheels on judgment calls.
I handle refunds in two ways. For technical bugs, I issue an automatic refund without any questions. If someone is not happy with the app, they have 48 hours to explain how it didn’t match the store description. This helps prevent users from asking for refunds after using the app for weeks.
We just ask them to screenshot the issue. Bugs are easy to show, disappointment isn’t.
We built a simple three-tier system after months of dealing with this nightmare.
Tier 1: App crashes, login issues, broken features - automatic refund in 24 hours.
Tier 2: “Not what I expected” complaints - give them 7 days to try it, then ask which specific feature or promise we missed. Most people drop it at this point.
Tier 3: Everything else goes to one senior person who decides.
The game changer was teaching support to ask upfront: “Is this technical or just not what you wanted?” Probably saves us 15 hours weekly in endless email chains.
Technical bugs get refunds immediately. Expectations don’t.