A buyer is on the checkout page with a card in her hand. The last thing she does before paying is look for the refund policy, and what she finds is a badge saying satisfaction guaranteed with no terms attached.
She either pays and disputes later, or she does not pay at all. Neither is what the creator wanted.
The checklist
Publish these and both the conversions and the disputes improve.
1. The window, in days
From purchase or from course start, stated exactly. This is the first thing a buyer looks for and a badge is not an answer.
2. Whether completion matters
Whether a refund requires having worked through a portion of the material, and how much. A completion condition is entirely reasonable and must be stated before purchase, not applied afterwards.
3. What happens to access
Whether access is revoked on refund, whether downloaded materials must be deleted and what is expected. Most creators say nothing and then feel aggrieved.
4. How to request one
The route, what information is needed and how long it takes. A refund process that requires chasing produces a payment dispute instead.
5. What is excluded
Cohort courses after a start date, live events, downloadable-only products and anything bought on a heavy discount. Exclusions are acceptable when published.
6. The position on partial refunds
For a cohort abandoned halfway, or a bundle where one element was used. Having a stated position prevents negotiating each one.
7. What happens after the window
Whether there is any discretion, whether a transfer to a later cohort is possible and whether credit is offered instead. A yes here retains a customer a flat no loses.
8. Whether a guarantee is conditional
Any claim about results should state what the buyer must do. Unconditional promises about outcomes are unwise in any field, which is the argument in reducing refund requests with better pre-sale answers.
9. How long refunds take to arrive
Processing time and card issuer time, separately. Buyers chase after three days because nobody told them it takes ten.
10. What to do about a technical problem
A buyer who cannot access the material is not asking for a refund, they are asking for help, and treating the two the same loses a customer who wanted to stay.
11. Whether the terms differ by product
Self-paced, cohort, membership and one-off events often need different terms. Publishing one policy for all of them creates a gap someone will find.
11b. Whether a refund affects a community
Many courses come with a group, and a refunded buyer who remains in it is a question nobody has thought about. Saying plainly whether community access ends with a refund, and when, avoids the awkward position of removing someone quietly and having them notice.
12. The policy page is a sales page
It is read at the point of decision by people ready to buy, which is the point of a returns policy nobody reads is still your busiest page.
13. Launch periods concentrate the questions
They are covered in launch week support for course creators, and the wider terms in refund, access and certificate questions for course creators.
Getting started
Publish your window, conditions, exclusions and process, then answer refund questions at the checkout moment at any hour. SpideyChat for coaches and creators answers from your published pages, our plans are on the pricing page, and the chatbot ROI calculator works through the numbers.