In Duane Forrester’s blog post, he describes his experience with a retail company’s return policy. Long story short, Forrester ordered a camera online; instead of waiting for the product to ship to his home, he decided to pick it up in-store. Although the camera was in the store, the managers did not allow Forrester to take the package due to the store’s shipping policy. Although Forrester was within metres away from the camera that he already paid for, he left the store frustrated and unhappy because of this policy.
Here is my take on this situation. The managers were doing their “job” by following the policies that they are paid to enforce, however, I believe that they should have given the camera to Forrester. If we look at companies like Zappos, we can see that they excel in customer service by having a flexible return policy; Zappos constantly makes loopholes in their policies to cater to their customer’s needs, an example being rewarding loyal customers with free shoes. The difference between a company like Zappos and this unknown electronic retailer is that Zappos intensively trains their workers in providing excellent customer service whereas the unknown electronic retailer likely does not train their workers to that extent. To prevent another unfortunate customer service experience, the unknown electronic retailer needs to restructure and improve employee customer service training.
Source:
http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2014/10/10/ideal-customer-service/