Easy Refunds or Epic Battle

What is your business’s policy?

There seems to be two very different schools of thought on how easy it should be for a business to issue a refund, deal with a cancellation or honour a guarantee.

When I cancelled my cable a few years ago they promised to issue a refund to me for $68. It didn’t come for a few months so I called and asked about it. They said it was in the system and would be sent shortly. It never came! Earlier this year, they called and wanted to sign me up again. I asked about my refund. The salesperson could see it clearly on the system as owing to me.  I asked why they didn’t send it. The reason was that I didn’t ask for a cheque to be issued.

I don’t believe them and I didn’t sign up, and likely won’t ever.

Although I can’t confirm this is the policy, it was unusually hard to have a refund issued by their organization.

Contrast this to my experience last week in Big Sur at the Glen Oaks resort. We had booked and paid for three night’s accommodation. On the morning of the third day we made a personal decision to leave a day early. When I went in to discuss it, I was expecting nothing but open to maybe getting one night’s credit to return another time. As I started into my explanation to Chris at the front desk, he stopped me and promptly issued a refund for the last day – no questions asked.

As a result, if you ever plan on visiting Big Sur, California I recommend:   www.glenoaksbigsur.com.

I believe the ‘make it difficult’ strategy is a short term, scarcity type thinking. The ‘easy and generous’ strategy is a smart investment in the future and most enjoyable for the customer experiencing it.

Do you offer a guarantee? How well is it explained? How easy is it to use? At this time, I think I will take some time and review my own guarantee policy and report back in a future blog. In fact, I will go so far as to guarantee to provide a blog post dedicated to the topic of ‘guarantees’.

One Response to “Easy Refunds or Epic Battle”

Rick S. November 7th, 2011 at 12:32 pm

I couldn’t agree more Paul. It’s easy for a company to treat customers well when they’re getting paid. But when a customer leaves, or has an issue, is the time when you discover their TRUE customer service philosophy.

Treat every customer how you’d like to be treated, and you’ll create endless amounts of goodwill. Thanks for sharing this Paul!

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