The Torn Suit
How I deal with disgruntled customers.
Paying out this money was a devastating blow to my cash flow. If you’ve been following this blog you know that I’m getting by each month by the skin of my teeth right now.
But there is a bigger story here and that is owning your mistakes. I remember when I was delivering that order, I took the clothes out of the car and the plastic had gotten snagged so I just pulled on it. I thought I heard a rip but didn’t bother to double check. I just delivered the clothes as normal and went on to my next delivery. When this customer reached out I immediately remembered the clothes getting snagged.
He calculated the depreciation value of the entire suit even though only the pants were ripped, but he is right that the pants are irreplaceable. The jacket still has value to be sure, but is that value enough to haggle over? Maybe I save $100, but that opens the door to this customer becoming even angrier and shitting on my company online. That sort of risk is simply not worth it.
Anytime I have a customer complaint, I go out of my way to fix it. One time, a customer swore up and down that we lost his elbow pads, which I thought was highly unlikely. Nonetheless I immediately drove to his hotel before check out and handed him the cash ($65) to replace them.
In these situations I always give the customer the benefit of the doubt, because the alternative is essentially accusing the customer of fraud. And really there is no amount of money that is worth that sort of fiasco. My approach has always been to ask the customer what they think is fair and give them exactly what they ask for. It is the best approach.
This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a Dallas startup called Feather Laundry. For your reference here is the Table of Contents for the series.
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