When a customer asks for a refund or wants to return an item,
something has gone very wrong in the selling process. The problem might
be an error on your part (you sent the product in the wrong color) or an
error on the customer’s part (they ordered it in the wrong color) or
something unrelated to either of you (the mail carrier delivered the
product to the wrong address so the customer never got it).
Whatever the cause, you can successfully resolve the situation if you remember this: He who takes the blame, wins.
Think of it this way. If you tell the customer that it was their error that caused the problem, they might argue or they might agree, but either way they’ll be upset about it. And that emotion will be linked with you and your company. This feeling will linger in the customer’s mind whenever they think about you and taint any future transactions (if they don’t simply decide never to buy anything from you again).
If you drop the blame on a neutral third party, like the US Postal Service, and figuratively wash your hands of the problem, now the customer is stuck dealing with it. They have to take on the task of calling the post office, locating the person in charge of mail delivery, and getting that person to find and redeliver the package. Once again the memory of all this unpleasantness will stick with the customer and will affect how they feel about you.
Now turn the situation around and think about what would happen if your response to the customer was “I’m so sorry you were inconvenienced. I’ll send you a new one immediately at no extra charge or issue you a full refund, whichever you prefer.” By taking responsibility for making the customer happy... regardless of who created the problem... you’ve given the customer good feelings about you.
Sure, you’ve lost the value of the original product, but you’ve also gained a loyal customer who will buy many more products from you AND tell their friends what a great company you are.
And while you’re factoring in the cost of being a good sport, consider that if the customer paid for your product via credit card and they are really unhappy with you, then they can just call their credit card company and get the charge reversed. When that happens, the credit card company will issue a “chargeback” – they’ll take the money away from you. If you have a lot of chargebacks, your credit card processor will raise your fees to astronomical levels because they’ll consider you a poor risk, and you’ll end up losing an extra chunk of money from every credit card transaction.
In other words, if you don’t refund the customer’s money they’ll have the option to take their money back anyway and cost you even more money in the future. Being gracious about refunds is starting to sound a lot better, isn’t it?
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
Whatever the cause, you can successfully resolve the situation if you remember this: He who takes the blame, wins.
Think of it this way. If you tell the customer that it was their error that caused the problem, they might argue or they might agree, but either way they’ll be upset about it. And that emotion will be linked with you and your company. This feeling will linger in the customer’s mind whenever they think about you and taint any future transactions (if they don’t simply decide never to buy anything from you again).
If you drop the blame on a neutral third party, like the US Postal Service, and figuratively wash your hands of the problem, now the customer is stuck dealing with it. They have to take on the task of calling the post office, locating the person in charge of mail delivery, and getting that person to find and redeliver the package. Once again the memory of all this unpleasantness will stick with the customer and will affect how they feel about you.
Now turn the situation around and think about what would happen if your response to the customer was “I’m so sorry you were inconvenienced. I’ll send you a new one immediately at no extra charge or issue you a full refund, whichever you prefer.” By taking responsibility for making the customer happy... regardless of who created the problem... you’ve given the customer good feelings about you.
Sure, you’ve lost the value of the original product, but you’ve also gained a loyal customer who will buy many more products from you AND tell their friends what a great company you are.
And while you’re factoring in the cost of being a good sport, consider that if the customer paid for your product via credit card and they are really unhappy with you, then they can just call their credit card company and get the charge reversed. When that happens, the credit card company will issue a “chargeback” – they’ll take the money away from you. If you have a lot of chargebacks, your credit card processor will raise your fees to astronomical levels because they’ll consider you a poor risk, and you’ll end up losing an extra chunk of money from every credit card transaction.
In other words, if you don’t refund the customer’s money they’ll have the option to take their money back anyway and cost you even more money in the future. Being gracious about refunds is starting to sound a lot better, isn’t it?
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
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