Thoughts on Company Policies
We’ve all heard the party line “I’m terribly sorry, but we can’t do that. It’s company policy.“ Hearing that makes my blood boil. Screw your company and its policy, I gave you money in exchange for a solution and I’m not happy with your solution, so it makes sense: I want my money back, or else it’s theft.
If you promise to give me a phone, and I pay you for a phone, and you give me a calculator, and then your company policy says “no refunds”, in my eyes that’s theft.
Of course, the ‘calculator instead of a phone’ scenario is only an exagerated example. It could be that you asked a company to print business cards, and they cut it skew. You have a right to demand a refund, stuff their desire for profit. What about your profit, i.e. properly cut business cards.
You may be able to tell I haven’t had the best of luck with business cards, with neither of my companies.
There is an ugly white smear on the business card. About 80% of the business cards came out like that. This work of art was done by Business Card Express in Brackenhurst, Alberton. You can see why they’re the cheapest solution around.
And with the Corporate Showcase Production ones, the front was cut straight, but the back was printed skew, so when they cut it, it came out skew. This lovely work was done by MinuteMan Press in Alberton, quite an expensive provider considering the quality.
A company is there to make a profit, but so is the customer. The customer doesn’t pay money in exchange for a computer. They pay money in exchange for the value the computer brings, the solution it provides to a problem.
All this ranting has a point: Company policies are necessary, but they need to be thought out with fairness in mind, NOT profit.
I was contacted by an event coordinator to arrange drummers for the opening of the Indian Premier League Cricket Tournament. I spent hours arranging the drummers, transport etc, and the uniforms the event organisers required… aaaaand then they pulled out. So I put a company policy in place: “We do not spend time or money arranging an event without the customer putting money on the table first”.
So the next time an ‘Indian Premier League’ contacted us for drummers, we were protected. Because let’s face it, in business and life in general, there are people out there who will walk over you. Not everyone has the benefit of a good upbringing and a strong sense of integrity.
The chances are a customer will take their business elsewhere, but the chances are equally good, if not better, that you’ve saved yourself time and money.
The moral of this story is this, think carefully about your company policies. They need to strike a careful, reasonable balance between protecting you, and being fair to your customer.
Don’t have a policy that says, “NO refunds under ANY circumstances!”
Instead, your policy should be, “If we screw up, we’ll do it over or give you your money back – with a smile – because we value you as a customer and as a human being” because the customer should not have to suffer because the company is too thick to do the job they claimed they could do.