UnLACED. the Returns.

LACED’s return process was manual, slow, and invisible to everyone involved. The impact was simple: customers stopped trusting the platform, and the business was losing money on every return.

85%

DROP in “Why denied?” emails

35%

FEWER returns-related CX tickets

15%

Retention post-return

UNDERSTANDING RETURN PROCESS

I mapped the full process across three groups: the customer, the CX agent, and the authenticator. All three were frustrated. None of them had visibility into what the others were doing. From the research, I identified 17 return reasons, the most common triggers for a customer to initiate a return. Those were crossed with 9 authentication criteria to determine when a refund should be granted or denied. That logic had never been written down in one place. It became the foundation on which everything else was built.

User journey's, flows, logic mapping and return scenarios

Mapping of the original comms and timing during the return process

WHAT I DID

With the logic mapped, I designed the new internal flow. Every return followed a clear, traceable path, from CX triggering the process with the customer’s initial information, through to the authenticator giving a verdict. Refund functionality was available on every eligible purchase within the 14-day SLA window. Manual steps became automatic where possible. Every stage was visible to the people who needed to act on it. The goal was full self-service: customers triggering their own return from their profile without needing to contact CX at all. The original goal was full self-service from day one. We chose not to. Opening customer-triggered returns before the internal process was stable risked overwhelming the team and losing control over volume, storage, and resale. Phase one was deliberate: fix the internal system first, protect the business, then open the doors to customers.

To start rebuilding customer trust in the meantime, I redesigned the communication layer. Previously, it was either silent or a templated rejection with no explanation. Customers now have confirmation that their return was received, updates while the item was being assessed, and a specific reason if their refund was denied.

It wasn’t the full solution from day one, but it was a deliberate compromise between what users needed, what the business wanted, and what the system could handle at that moment.

OUTCOME

Emails asking why a return was denied dropped by 85%. CX tickets fell by 35%. Post-return retention improved by 15%. Where Is My Order tickets dropped by 75% just from making the order status visible. Phase 1 performed so well that the business deprioritised phase 2, the internal process had already solved the core problem.