The Store Policy

Today I was at an upscale women's boutique clothing store in Fairfax and sitting on the sofa while my wife was trying on jeans in the dressing room. A great little store, I know the owner and we discuss the ins and outs of running a small business each time I am there. Today the owner was off and her two very capable employees were running the store.

The phone to the store rang and one of the women answered it, and as I was but 6 feet away could not help but hear the conversation. A customer by the name of Karen had bought some clothing there as a Christmas gift and wanted to return it for a full refund. The Associate explained very professionally they only do refunds for 5 days after purchase date as is their store policy, and would accept exchanges for 10 days after date of sale. However, being it was a Christmas gift they would allow a return for exchange or store credit until January 16th. (That was very reasonable I thought to myself, and I know one reason they don't like full refunds is they have to pay 3.5% transaction fees on credit cards so that is gone forever (on a $ 500.00 purchase that would be $ 17.50 they do not recover)).

"Karen" was having none of that. She repeatedly demanded a full refund and kept arguing the point. What should have been a 2 minute phone call went on for 12 to 13 minutes, as the Associate kept repeating the store policy and the customer on the phone would not accept that. Finally it was obvious the conversation was going nowhere, and the saleslady said she was terminating the phone call and that the caller could ring back for the owner tomorrow. She got off the phone and just had a breakdown and started crying and could not stop. I, of course, have had many - many phone calls like that over the years and got up and went over to talk to her to calm her down. I said "You handled that very professionally, don't let her upset you, some people just think they are above the rules of the store and don't know when to stop pushing". It took her a good ten minutes and a half a box of Kleenex to regain her composure. This is part of retail, however - it comes with the territory.

I told her next time that happens with a customer who just won't listen, tell them to them to submit their objection to the Store Policy in writing and mail the letter to the store for consideration by the Owner. That usually takes the wind out of their sales because now they have to write a letter. She said "That's a really good idea, I will remember that".

One thing I have learned over the decades is most everyone thinks are they entitled to an exception to the store policy. So you have to be prepared for that.

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