Handling returns and warranty claims is one of the most expensive operational problems in retail. Most brands selling physical products know it, but few have actually mapped where the pain comes from.
After analysing dozens of conversations with brands and retailers in furniture and fashion, the same seven problems show up again and again. The names change, the scale changes, but the structure of the pain is identical. We call them the seven plagues of returns management.
Recognise any of these? Each one alone costs thousands per year. Together they can cost millions.
Here are the 7 plagues that make handling product returns and claims a painful challenge:
1. Manual handling of returns
Most brands still process large parts of their returns through emails and spreadsheets. The work that gets done by hand:
- Refunds, replacements, gift cards
- Looking up warranty rules per product or supplier
- Copy-pasting data from email into the order system
- Notifying customers, suppliers, warehouses
Each of these takes minutes per claim. Multiply by hundreds of claims a month and the team is spending more time pushing data around than actually solving customer problems.
The fix: Move the work that's mechanical (refund processing, status notifications, supplier hand-offs) out of email and into a structured workflow. The work that's actually judgement-based (edge cases, exceptions, escalations) stays human, but with full context attached.
2. Missing documentation
The single most common reason a return takes a week instead of a day: the customer didn't include enough information when they submitted it.
Different return scenarios need different documentation. A "wrong size" return needs almost nothing. A defect claim needs photos, video, the serial number, and proof of purchase. An "arrived damaged" claim needs photos of the packaging too. Without the right info upfront, the team has to chase the customer for days, claim by claim.
The fix: Replace the email inbox with a structured intake form. The form adapts based on what the customer is returning and asks for the right information up front. The claim arrives complete or it doesn't arrive.
3. Back and forth with customers
Even when intake is mostly working, every email between the team and the customer is a delay. "Can you send a photo of the back of the product?" "Could you give us the order number?" "What's the date you received it?"
Each round of follow-up adds 24 to 72 hours to resolution and costs agent time. From the customer's side, every additional email feels like the brand is making them work harder than they should have to.
The fix: Capture everything once, at intake, with the right form fields and validation. Give the customer visible status so they don't need to ask "where's my claim" three days later.
4. Too many stakeholders
Returns and claims involve more parties than almost any other type of customer support. A single defect claim might pass through:
Add B2C versus B2B customer types, multiple channels (online, in-store, wholesale), and different supplier guidelines on top, and a single claim can pass through five different formats before it's resolved.
The fix: A shared platform where every stakeholder sees the same case in the same status. Customer, support agent, supplier, warehouse, all looking at the same record. No forwarded threads, no manual updates between systems.
5. Complex products
Add B2C versus B2B customer types, multiple channels (online, in-store, wholesale), and different supplier guidelines on top, and a single claim can pass through five different formats before it's resolved.
The fix: A shared platform where every stakeholder sees the same case in the same status. Customer, support agent, supplier, warehouse, all looking at the same record. No forwarded threads, no manual updates between systems.
6. Lack of integrations and returns automation
The team's screens are usually a mosaic of tabs. Email here, Shopify there, ERP somewhere else, supplier portal in a fourth tab, shipping software in a fifth. Every claim requires switching between them, copying data manually, and hoping nothing got mistyped along the way.
This is where claims platforms earn their cost. The technology isn't impressive. What's impressive is what the team gets back when they stop tab-switching.
That's 14 to 24 minutes per claim before any actual problem-solving has happened.
The fix: Connect the tools to each other. Customer order data flows into the claim. Claim status flows back to the help desk. Refunds trigger automatically once approved. The team only touches the parts that need human judgement.
7. Poor returns data and reporting
If you rely on manual data processing you will typically find another problem, which is having data collected and well-structured so you can analyze it and use it to improve your business.
However, if you rely on emails or stitched together systems, there’s a high likelihood that your data will be fragmented. That makes it difficult and time consuming to create even the simplest report. You miss insight into exactly how many returns you get, which products drive them, how much it costs your business and how you can improve. You operate bl
If your data lives in email and spreadsheets, you can't analyse it. You don't know:
- How many claims you got last quarter
- Which products drive the most claims
- Which suppliers cause disproportionate problems
- What the average resolution time is, by claim type
- How much the entire returns operation is actually costing you
You operate blind. Decisions about which products to discontinue, which suppliers to renegotiate with, and where to invest in product quality all get made on instinct rather than data.
The fix: Centralise the data so reports build themselves. Resolution time, claim volume per SKU, supplier performance, cost per claim. Once it's structured, the dashboard does the work.
What it costs to keep ignoring the plagues
The honest answer: more than most brands realise. Each plague alone is manageable. Combined, they compound.
For most mid-sized brands, the cost of doing nothing is at least €100K to €300K per year in agent time, lost credits, and customer churn. For larger groups, it's into seven figures.
What changes when the plagues are fixed
Davidsen went from 5 agents handling claims to 1 to 2. MaxGaming resolves complex RMA cases 77% faster using Claimlane's AI Agent. Sebra reframed claim handling from a cost centre to a value-creating activity, with retention rates on customers who filed claims matching customers who never had a problem.
The pattern is the same across every brand that's done the work. The plagues are real. They're also fixable.
If any of them sound familiar, the path forward isn't more headcount. It's better infrastructure.
Talk to us or check out the blog for more on how to improve your returns process.
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