research, product design, responsive site, mobile
helping sellers manage their payment risk
Square's Risk Manager is the built-in tool for Square sellers to protect their online businesses from buyer-instigated fraud.
How might Square help small business owners manage their payment risk?
Buyer fraud occurs when fraudsters use stolen credit card to make a purchase with a Square sellers. This is usually followed by a dispute from the legitimate card owner, resulting in a loss of both funds and goods/services for our sellers. These fraudulent disputes are notoriously hard to fight for even if sellers did not do anything wrong, as banks will most likely side with their customers. Therefore, the objective is to prevent these disputes from happening altogether.
We started first and foremost by understanding the multitude of sellers that relies on Square for their living. From aspiring side hustlers to manager of retailers with million dollars in transactions each year, we talked and learned how our sellers would like to be helped. We talked to 20+ sellers of varying sizes and business models to gain insights on how they take risk into consideration in their business practices. Driven by business objectives, we then settled on small to medium-sized business owners as our target audience.
Fraud is very technical, beyond my area of expertise. I want liability to be on Square and Square to manage it, but I want some say. –Square seller
Our generative research led us to rethink the seller experience in Risk Manager from multiple angles, focusing on simplifying decision-making and strengthening fraud protection for entrepreneurs who count on Square to have their backs while they focus on running their business. This is especially true for small business owners who often do not have the time and resources to dedicate to fighting fraud. We begin by leveraging Rules Recommendation, an existing, under-utilized feature that generates personalized suggestions that behaves as one-click automations for our sellers. We then focused our efforts on redesigning a landing page for Risk Manager that streamlines actions and decision-making, optimizing seller's choice of protection within their 5 minutes window of visit.
For the full case study of this project, please inquire directly at theresautanto@gmail.com.