Corey Besaw, Chief Operating Officer, Ubiquity
As businesses face surges of disputes and chargebacks, the costs and risks have never been higher. In 2023, U.S. consumers disputed approximately 105 million charges, totaling an estimated $11 billion.
In this environment, effective dispute management has evolved from a back-office function into a key component of customer experience (CX) strategy. Consumers expect a seamless, transparent process when disputes arise, and businesses need to strike the right balance between preventing fraud and ensuring customer satisfaction.
The Growing Role of Technology in Dispute Management
Traditional dispute management has often been slow, inefficient, and costly, creating operational risks and customer dissatisfaction. However, technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, predictive analytics, and chargeback automation are now improving accuracy, efficiency, and consistency in the process.
AI and machine learning are particularly valuable in identifying patterns and anomalies in transaction data, allowing businesses to quickly flag potential fraud or errors. Automation streamlines routine tasks like data entry, claim validation, and communication with customers that overwhelm dispute teams. This allows human agents to focus on more complex cases that require judgment and empathy.
As Disputes Surge, Customer Experience Is Key in Dispute Management
Earning and keeping consumer trust is fundamental to competitiveness, especially as customers have more options and face greater financial anxiety. A bad customer experience is the Number 1 reason that consumers would stop using a financial services provider, with nearly 30% of consumers saying they would never use a financial services brand after a bad customer experience, according to Morning Consult’s 2022 Most Trusted Brands report.
Transaction disputes are one of the primary drivers of customer complaints, presenting the greatest risk of reputational harm and regulatory scrutiny and boasting the highest servicing costs. To stay competitive, providers must rethink their approach to dispute management and transition from reactive, inefficient processes to a more proactive, customer-centric approach supported by advanced technologies.
Four Key Strategies to Support Dispute Management in 2025
1. Resolve most claims within two or three days to build customer trust.
Accelerating the investigation process is critical to delivering seamless CX for our clients, who consistently rank high in Net Promoter Scores and customer satisfaction within the dispute process. But speeding up the investigation isn’t just a matter of moving faster. If you’re not careful, you could be facing significant losses and compliance errors. You have to move smarter to reduce the claim resolution time while maintaining accuracy.
2. Segment teams by claim type and risk profile for precision.
To improve both productivity and compliance, segment your dispute teams based on claim type (ATM non-dispense, P2P payments, unauthorized transactions, etc.) and risk profile (geography, dollar value). This approach ensures that high-risk claims receive the needed attention while reducing overburdening of all resources. For some clients, this strategy has allowed us to reduce overall headcount because of productivity gains. Just be certain to apply your segmentation uniformly across the board on all claims, rather than at the customer level, which could violate Unfair, Deceptive, or Abusive Acts or Practices (UDAAP) rules.
3. Utilize AI strategically to improve speed and accuracy without replacing human oversight.
While AI and machine learning can be powerful tools in CX and dispute management, they must be used together with humans. If you try to use AI alone for claim decisions, you could create more problems than you solve. Regulators pay close attention to the dispute process, especially decisioning. An algorithm can’t explain why it made a decision for a specific claim, which means you won’t be able to either. We see AI as a helpful tool in guiding agents to the right decisions, but the investigator should be the one making the final call—with proof points to back it up.
At Ubiquity, we utilize our proprietary technology called inCharge to not only effectively help guide agents and stay ahead of threats but also automate routine tasks such as data entry, claim validation, and communication. This technology is always utilized along with human agents and investigators who can provide context, oversight, and justification for their decisions.
4. Create dedicated, expert teams for effective dispute resolution.
Depending on who handles your customer service and disputes, you might not have much flexibility to shape the process. And depending on your size, you could be dealing with shared resources. That’s not ideal for world-class CX, but it can be especially problematic for disputes.
Clients often approach us to streamline the dispute process; we know that when volume increases, dedicated teams with deep knowledge of your business and the dispute process will always outperform shared teams.
It all comes back to trust
We’ve seen the impacts of these strategies firsthand. By overhauling a client’s dispute and chargeback operations, we achieved a 200% increase in productivity, 94% accuracy, and 99% compliance. Prioritizing efficient, integrated dispute management, while balancing fraud prevention, enables businesses to cultivate lasting customer relationships while protecting their reputations and limiting their liabilities.
Corey Besaw is chief operating officer, responsible for delivery excellence across all service offerings and business units including Banking Operations, which helps financial services providers optimize dispute and chargeback management, fraud investigation, and manual KYC and identity verification processes. This article originally appeared in Business Reporter.
Discover more about how we helped one of the fastest-growing challenger banks in the U.S. revamp their dispute process amid skyrocketing volume in this in-depth Case Study.
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