Posted by Jack Smith on September 14, 1999 at 20:37:43:
In Reply to: In Reply to : WARNING!!! posted by Richard Oden on September 12, 1999 at 11:29:36 posted by Mark Boyce on September 14, 1999 at 14:02:56:
Mark,
Good to see a response here to the complaint. Some merchants would not have bothered. I agree that if you're in business, you're going to encounter the occasional off-balance customer. Perhaps that was the case here, and perhaps not. I also agree that a reasonable person would not expect a guarantee at the price levels you are selling the cases. I don't believe that's the point. I believe that by stating that the "chain and shafts turn", you implied that the case was somehow checked out, and passed some criteria to be shipped. Not all of your customers are equally endowed with mechanical abilities to evaluate things for themselves. What was the point of stating this, if the cases were intended as "cores"? My final assessment of this mess is that whatever the truth is here, you still have an extremely dissatisfied customer runing around loose, that could have been placated by a refund of the shipping. I think it would have been a wise investment in this case. You must have made a good profit on the number of cases you have sold out if the original lot of 2000, and if you eat one in 2000, that's not a bad score, is it? Sometimes it's the only way. I would not say that you scammed anyone here, but I DO believe yo left this fellow with a feeling that his dissatisfaction was not important to you. This creates further problems down the road for you and other merchants. Every policy has to have enough flexibility to bend once in a while. In this case, I don't believe that eating the shipping would have caused the destruction of your business. When you sell heavy items like this, you must assume a difference stance than light easily shipped goods. I'm sure that you agree that the day you bought those transfer cases, you were taking on the risk that some of them would be defective. Why is it the customer's problem now? Surely, you can see that at the high freight rates on gearboxes and the like, this fellow felt it was a part of the cost of the case. Wouldn't it have been a wise gesture to just make the sale right, at any cost? Just think of what he would be saying now if you had both taken back the box and refunded the freight cost. I'd do business with ANYONE who would consider that! NOBODY ever considers how the customer feels, because the bottom line is always the rotten money. Well, mark, that's NOT the bottom line. THAT'S where I believe you erred. Good luck, and stop here more often! This is a very close knit community. Perhaps you can do a little damage control.
Regards,
Jack