Aeropay Customer Service: Expert Guide for Merchants and Support Teams

Contents

1 Aeropay Customer Service: Expert Guide for Merchants and Support Teams

Executive overview

Aeropay customer service is the operational backbone for merchants and end customers using Aeropay payment rails. In a mature deployment, support must handle payments, settlements, refunds, fraud reviews, API integration issues and regulatory requests. Best-in-class teams treat Aeropay support as a product function with measurable KPIs (first response time, resolution time, CSAT) and a documented escalation path into engineering, finance and compliance.

This document anticipates real operational needs: specific response targets, typical timelines (refunds, chargebacks), debugging steps for API errors, and a concise playbook for escalation. Use the examples and metrics below as operational targets; confirm company-specific SLA numbers against your Aeropay merchant contract and the Aeropay support portal for definitive figures.

Contact channels and availability

Effective Aeropay support exposes at least three direct channels: a prioritized phone line for revenue-impacting incidents, an authenticated merchant portal for ticketing and case history, and a developer-focused email/Slack channel for API and integration issues. Offering 24/7 phone/incident support for production outages and business-hours ticketing for routine issues is standard for payment platforms.

Typical channel configuration (examples — verify in your merchant agreement):

Priority phone line (example): +1 (800) 555-0123 — staffed 24/7 for Sev-1 incidents.

Merchant support portal: https://support.aeropay.example — raise tickets, attach logs, view escalation status.

Developer Slack/email: [email protected] — for API keys, webhook debugging and integration diagnostics (SLA 4 business hours for triage).

For compliance and audit requests, a dedicated compliance mailbox such as [email protected] and a postal address for legal notices should be listed in contract documents. Maintain an up-to-date contact matrix in your runbook with time zones, holidays and backup contacts to meet contractual SLAs year-round.

Service levels, response targets and KPIs

Design SLAs around impact categories. A recommended baseline for Aeropay merchant programs is: Sev-1 (complete payment disruption) — first response within 15–60 minutes, workaround or mitigation within 2 hours; Sev-2 (partial payment impact) — first response within 4 hours, resolution within 24–48 hours; Sev-3 (non-critical issues) — first response within 24 hours, resolution within 3–7 business days.

Operational KPIs to track monthly: first response rate (target 95% within SLA), mean time to resolution (MTTR) for Sev-1 under 4 hours, CSAT >4.2/5 or >85% satisfaction, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) target +30 for merchant support. Monitor backlog (tickets older than 7 days) and fight to keep it under 2% of monthly ticket volume.

Common issues and troubleshooting workflow

The most frequent Aeropay support categories are payment declines, webhook delivery failures, settlement discrepancies, KYC/verification delays and API integration errors. For declines, collect the transaction ID, timestamp (UTC), amount, card BIN (first 6 digits), acquirer decline code and the full response payload. The majority of declines are due to card issues (expired card, insufficient funds) or issuer fraud rules; these are usually resolved by retrying or asking the customer to use another payment method.

For API and webhook problems, follow a strict debugging checklist: 1) reproduce the call using a Postman collection, 2) capture request/response headers and body, 3) verify certificate/TLS chain and IP allowlists, 4) check timestamp skew and HMAC signature verification, and 5) correlate logs with Aeropay request_id and gateway_id. Maintain a snippet of common error codes and recovery actions (e.g., “invalid_signature” → reissue key, “webhook_410” → re-subscribe) in your runbook for rapid resolution.

Settlement and reconciliation issues require ledger-level evidence: merchant statement, Aeropay settlement batch ID, timestamp, acquirer settlement reference and interchange fees. Typical settlement lag is 1–3 business days for most card schemes; if funds are delayed beyond 5 business days, escalate to finance with the full batch extract (CSV) and merchant bank trace number (MT103 or local equivalent).

Refunds, chargebacks and dispute handling

Refunds should be operationally simple: process partial or full refunds via the Aeropay dashboard or API and communicate expected timing to the customer (typically 3–5 business days to appear on a cardholder statement). Record the refund transaction ID and reference it in merchant accounting. For fees, set an internal policy: many merchants absorb card fees on refunds or apply a small processing fee; document this in terms and conditions to reduce disputes.

Chargeback timelines and representment vary by scheme: domestic card disputes often allow 7–21 days to submit evidence, while international disputes can be longer. Average representment win rates vary by sector, but 30%–65% is typical depending on evidence quality. For every chargeback, gather original receipt, AVS/CVV results, delivery proof (tracking number with signature if applicable), customer communication and the Aeropay transaction trace. Submit a well-structured representment packet within the timeline specified by Aeropay’s chargeback team.

Security, compliance and data handling

Maintain PCI DSS compliance: do not store PANs in clear text, use Aeropay’s tokenization option for stored credentials, enforce TLS 1.2+ for all endpoints and rotate API keys at least annually or immediately after any suspected compromise. Require 2FA for all portal access and role-based access control (RBAC) for staff — segregate duties for refunds and settlements to reduce fraud risk.

Keep an audit trail for every support action affecting payments and PII. For privacy and legal requests, use the contractual channels specified in your Aeropay agreement and retain logs for the retention period required by local law (commonly 5–7 years for payments). Regularly review Aeropay’s published attestations and request SOC 2 / PCI reports as part of vendor risk management.

Best practices for merchants and support agents

Adopt a compact playbook for day-to-day operations and for major incidents. Train agents on key flows (refunds, API key rotation, chargeback evidence collection) and keep scripted responses for frequent customer questions to ensure consistency and reduce handle time. Run quarterly tabletop exercises with engineering and finance to validate the incident escalation path.

Maintain a support-runbook: contact matrix, SLA targets, sample email templates, and a prioritized incident checklist.

Instrument monitoring: synthetic transactions every 5–15 minutes, webhook delivery success rate >99.5%, and alerting for settlement deviations >0.5% of expected volume.

Track customer-facing metrics monthly: CSAT, FRT, MTTR, dispute win rate and settlement accuracy. Use these to prioritize process improvement and training.

Implement these practices and continuously refine them using quarterly retrospective reviews. Effective Aeropay customer service protects revenue, reduces disputes and maintains trust with merchants and cardholders.