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Return And Shipping Policies
March 16, 2008
The
Retail Contrarian made a great point when they wrote:
Whenever sales are a bit tight it seems so many retailers do the same with their return and shipping policies. Looking to save a dollar here and there, they instruct their stores to "hold to the policy" and cut their customer very little slack.
The problem is they should be doing the opposite!
Whenever the sales environment becomes a little challenging we should become even more liberal with our returns and shipping policies. I'd rather eat a little margin than not make a sale. I'd rather take a product back or do an exchange that's outside the official timeframe than lose a customer.
We recently delivered to a client a special order black leather chair for TV viewing, the kind that reclines with the footrest built in. It’s a wonderful, high quality chair and I’m told sells like hotcakes. The problem is, when either the husband gets up or the wife gets up from the chair, the footrest won’t stay in the closed position. It bangs them in the back of the ankles.
I visited the client’s home and while there, called the technical staff of the company that makes the chair. We tried closing the footrest to see if the leather cushion was getting in the way or if it was the springs’ problem. We couldn’t find a solution.
Then I asked the rep for the company to visit the client in their home. The rep instructed the husband how to retract the footrest and it seemed to be working when we left. However, the wife was not there to work the chair.
The client called the other day and said it still was not working properly and her husband had to slam his heels against it to close it and even then it didn’t close all the time. I’m sure that when visitors try the chair, they get an earful about it.
The company says we are on our own, because it was working okay when the rep visited. Bev said the client is angry. We could easily wash our hands of it. Bev and I agreed that the best thing would be to get the chair out of the client’s home and start over. That will mean that we will have to find a way to fix it or eat the chair.
Sure, you want to go the extra mile in this sales environment. However, I think you do what’s right in any sales environment.
Thoughts? Email me at
landfair3554@comcast.net.
Posted by Mike Landfair on March 16, 2008 | Comments (2)
