American Express - Merchant Disputes Redesign

Dispute occurs when a AMEX card holder disagrees with transaction after purchase. For example, card holder can claim purchase was a freud, doesn’t remember transaction, or request a refund. A merchant can counter, or issue refund. Disputes is one of top reason American Express merchants visit AMEX Merchant website.

AMEX platform help manage disputes with card holder, so merchants can better focus on business.

THE PROJECT

Dispute overhaul is an ambitious project catering to merchants from various industry and size. Card holder dispute can be something simple as subscription cancelation, to something complex as multiple back and forth of each side making their case with supporting documents.

THE CHALLENGE

Identify and focus on core features that help merchants manage Disputes. This involved much of Product thinking, which included user needs, prioritization, communicating with other AMEX Merchant products.

MY ROLE

Own entire features from conception to design
Build prototypes ranging from low fidelity, to production quality
Facilitate teamwork, encouraging team members outside design background to take part in design process from beginning and onward

The Problem

American Express Disputes platform is outdated, complex, and hard to find crucial information. It also lacked consistency with other products within American Express, and wasn’t mobile friendly.

Setting a Vision

Defining Product

I encouraged and facilitated team efforts to meticulously define and document our product, including Agile based story defining, user segmenting, MVP vs post MVP separation. Analytics, business, technology, and design all worked together.

Defining epic, basic feature, advanced feature (post MVP)

Defining user stories, acceptance criteria for features

Defining user, user segments, and entry points

Applying the Vision

Transparency
Merchant will have clear view of which phase within dispute lifecycle a given dispute is in. Additionally, a chronological view of events is available under each dispute.
Being informed
Product is designed so merchants can instantly tell which disputes require immediate attention. This is made possible by simplifying main table to focus on dates left to respond before fund is debited from merchant account.
Provide feeling of increased chance in winning a dispute with card holder
American Express merchant and card holder are both clients, so obviously I can’t favor one over the other. However, by presenting the right information at the right time, it can help increase chance of winning. For instance, if merchant chose to respond to a dispute, I can notify that providing a supporting document in a particular format can increase your chance of not losing money.