Sometimes, Good Service Depends on Customer
CRM Daily | Sometimes, Good Service Depends on Customer
By Jayne ODonnell and Elaine Hughes
All Michelle Gluckow and her 13-year-old daughter wanted to do was buy a summer’s worth of camp clothes in one night at a New Jersey Abercrombie & Fitch.
After she suffered through long lines, blaring music and low lighting, Gluckow says, the cashier refused to sell her all 24 items, because of a policy that capped purchases at 20 to limit reselling. Gluckow, incredulous that she couldn’t pay full price for all the clothes she wanted, refused to leave the store until she had all the layered outfits her daughter needed.
Ultimately, she says, the manager grudgingly let her split the purchase between two credit cards.
Gluckow was luckier than Robert Martin, who says he couldn’t get Sears to take back a faulty 7-month-old phone — despite repeated calls and letters — because accepting it back would violate store policy.
Martin, a 30-year Sears credit card holder, says the decision shows why many businesses are losing loyal customers.
How stores treat customer complaints, returns and other service matters varies and can depend a lot on how the customers handle themselves, experts say. While the National Retail Federation’s Dan Butler says most retailers do everything they can to satisfy customers and typically assume the consumer is right, electronics manufacturers prefer to have products go back to them so they can better track problems with their products.
“Most policies are very, very liberal, but with electronics they are more stringent because it’s so competitive and most of the retailers take a loss,” says Butler. “The tradition in retailing is, as Marshall Field once said, ‘Give the lady what she wants.’”
For those cases when retailers don’t give you what you want, experts recommend fighting for your rights in a professional manner.
“The most common mistake people make is not complaining to the right
place and in the right manner,” says Janet Rubel, attorney and author
of 101+ Complaint Letters That Get Results.
After conversations with several managers didn’t get him what he
wanted, Martin sent a letter to the Sears board detailing his extensive
dealings with managers and customer service officials throughout the
company. He provided a copy to USA TODAY.
In it, he notes that a Sears salesman told him he should return the
phone to the manufacturer. But, Martin says, he didn’t do that because,
“It’s a home phone. I can’t send it back for them to work on it for two
months.”
Sears spokesman Christian Brathwaite says its policy — that
electronics can be returned for 30 days with a receipt — is little
different from Sears’ competitors.
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