I came across a pretty inspiring post called The Art of the Refund down at V7N’s blog today. It talks about how some online companies have a strict No Refunds policy while a number of bricks and mortar organisations will give you a refund and ask no questions. John Scott, the author, talks about how having a decent refund policy inspires trust in your customers and goes a long way towards building a lasting relationship.
Personally I believe this is the right way to go about things. One disgruntled customer can cause a huge amount of damage to your reputation and there’s nothing that upsets a customer more than paying for a product/service that doesn’t deliver. Instead of refusing a refund, use that customer to find out what doesn’t work for him/her and then incorporate that feedback in to your development process. Not only will you have the opportunity of winning back that customer, but your service would have matured into something that is more valuable for future customers.
Yes, this is certainly a true observation. There are other ways, along the “no-refund” to “full-refund, no questions asked” spectrum, that a company can operate. Whether it be store credit or restocking fee, companies have many options available.
And let’s not forget the external pressures which have an effect — like what other companies in the same segment are doing…
-Jason
I couldn’t agree more about the refund thing. I recently had a very bad experience with a website called Rivals.com that charges US$99 for a yearly membership and automatically renews that membership (that point is in the fine print). I requested a refund from their Customer Service dept. but was rejected and treated rather poorly.
Ever since then, I’ve been talking about how much I hate the site and will be blogging about it soon as well. 🙁