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Madeleine

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[h3]"But first I'll try to make you feel really badly" [/h3]
Here's one strategy for handling returns from unhappy customers:
Let them know you don't accept returns. Explain that it must be a user error. Explain that the customer must have lacked care or intelligence or ethics. Explain that you're willing to accept a return, but just this one time. And finally, explain that you're now going to put the person on a list, and you'll never sell to him ever again.
Do all this in one continuous statement, without pausing for a response.
This has happened to me more than once.
What puzzles me is this: if you're going to give the customer a refund, why not make them delighted by the process? Why not create an aura of goodwill? At the very least, both of you will have a better day. Even better, perhaps one day someone will mention your company to this former customer--I wonder what he'll say?
One tip: if you say your meta-goal out loud (or jot it down) before you start an interaction, you're more likely to consistently create the outcome you seek, not the one you hyperventilate yourself into.
 
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I also work in retail and you would be surprised at the amount of people who try to return something that they think is broken when they just didn't have the common sense to use it correctly. We do have a very customer friendly return policy but as the one who has to deal with most of the returns sometimes I wish I could say something like that. I don't mind a legitimate return but when something is broken because you don't have the common sense to pull the tabby thing out of the batteries I lose a little more faith in the future of the human race. *rant over* :)
 
Once went to return something to a store that had a posted policy of "No Questions Asked Returns". They asked me why I was returning the clothing item. I replied "wrong flavour". (Why have a posted policy of no questions and then ask me one?)
 
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