The National Payments Council of India (NPCI) that runs UPI, launched its Unified Dispute & Issue Resolution (UDIR) platform in 2020. UDIR is an automated, single-channel redressal system that aims to seamlessly address customer issues and complaints regarding pending transactions, and to provide speedy dispute resolution in an online manner through API calls instead of using manual file-based processes. NPCI’s existing dispute management process including Turn-Around Times (TAT), dispute & adjustment type, customer penalties for delayed credit for failed transactions, among others, is expected to be followed for transactions, complaints and disputes in the UDIR system going forward. The UDIR is integrated with NPCI’s internal UPI Real-Time Clearing & Settlement (URCS) System that is the engine that powers the interactions between the relevant banks, Payment System Providers and TPAPs in UPI transactions. Besides UPI, NPCI now requires UDIR to be adopted for other systems such as IMPS and AePS.
Only banks have access to the UDIR and when a customer raises a complaint directly in their TPAP’s app, the TPAP assigns the complaint to the respective bank/PSP involved in the transaction, in an automated manner. The bank/PSP has access to the UDIR and provides updates from it to the user via the user’s app.
Since its introduction, the NPCI has continuously focussed on enhancing UDIR’s functionalities for improving the customer experience for users of UPI. At the time of completion of this project, we understand that functionalities such as status updates on pending transactions to the sender’s app, and confirmation on refund credit to the sender’s app in the case of failed transactions where money was debited, are in operation for the most part. It also includes features such as auto-conversion of complaints into chargeback after prescribed TATs, and real-time complaint status checks for merchant users and their customers.
Supporting Customer Experience for NPCI’s UDIR
The solutions presented in Dvara Research’s In-App UPI GRM Project can help create a seamless user experience for any online dispute resolution / grievance redressal interface built atop NPCI’s UDIR system. While the NPCI’s UDIR system features are oriented towards automating the grievance workflow for transparency and speed of resolution, the NPCI has been emphasising a customer-centric approach to resolution such as status updates that customer can initiate, faster refunds, auto-conversion to chargebacks and so on. To support this, our UPI GRM Framework and solutions laid out in the Toolkit focus on improving the accessibility and seamlessness of the user experience of the automated grievance resolution system.
Our prescriptions on UX design and customer-facing workflows act as a guiding reference for TPAPs and other UPI providers when integrating their GRM offerings with NPCI’s UDIR; and can help to ensure that the envisioned benefits of UDIR translate into the constrained end-consumer’s experience.
We believe that our solutions are not only compatible with the vision of NPCI’s UDIR but are likely to enhance its effectiveness in the following ways:
- Towards an improved user interface for grievance redressal: While UDIR marks a shift towards improving the user’s grievance resolution experience, our solution focuses on the useability and accessibility of the user interface – which are very important considerations while building for the constrained user.
- Transparency throughout the support journey: UDIR calls for transparent tracking of dispute resolution for users by providing insight into real-time progress of a transaction (when pending or in progress, whether or not a complaint or dispute has been raised), dispute, or complaint status (when a complaint has been registered by the user). Our UPI GRM Framework prescribes transparency as well, to be embedded through the support journey. Our approach to transparency includes features such as:
- An effective Help Navigation Tree that synchronises the efforts of the front-end user in obtaining resolution with that of the back-end customer support team and the NPCI’s UDIR.
- Information to the customer for undertaking self-resolution for issues (clarity on expected TAT, temporary assurances, social validation through analytics) so that they can figure out a solution for themselves within the UPI app itself.
- A dedicated My Tickets dashboard that consolidates active and closed tickets into a single accessible area so users can stay informed about ongoing issues and take necessary actions to respond to a call-to-action on a ticket.
- Grievance redressal from the receiver’s perspective: UDIR considers transaction-related issues such as pending/in-progress/failed, and the resulting processes and flows from the payer’s (remitter’s) perspective. Our solution suggests an expansion in the scope of grievance resolution functionalities to include users who are receivers of payments as well. For instance, there is an option in Level 1 of the help Navigation Tree, to flag problems in receiving money.
NPCI’s UDIR aims for faster dispute resolution. Our solution is not aimed towards obtaining faster resolution at the backend – the UDIR and the URCS are the engines responsible for this). But by obtaining an interface that is comprehensible for the constrained user, it helps to reduce anxiety and confusion when there are wait-times involved. And this fosters a customer centric approach to thinking about the interface design for GRMs and therefore complements and strengthens the customer-centric approach of the UDIR.