[Molly OttoParticipant]

I’m interested in knowing how you manage to balance company goals like revenue & adherence to policies with customer happiness and accommodations.

This may be less applicable for some tech-oriented companies, but something we’re working on right now is return policies & exception cases. It can be tricky to balance customer satisfaction & retention with the need for concrete rules in place about returns, particularly when it’s for more nebulous reasons like “I realized a month later I don’t like the product I bought and wore.” Obviously customers want as pro-customer a policy as possible (it’s a Zappos world, we just live in it) while others within the company are more concerned with metrics and the bottom line. Is that something you’ve had to handle?

I guess a broader version of the question is: how do you decide when to say no and when to go against policy to give the customer what they want?

[Chase ClemonsParticipant]

We’ve got a pretty fair refund policy that’s worked well for us so far. https://basecamp.com/refund

Depending on the situation, we do full and partial refunds. It’s hard to set an overall policy since refund situations are best looked at on a case-by-case basis. I’m more concerned about reaching a good end point with the customer over worrying about the bottom line.

One handy tip I’ve used a few times. Start with asking the customer what kind of refund they think is fair. That’ll involve them in the decision and helps to reach that happy resolution.

[Simon OuderkirkParticipant]

Refunds are tricky philosophically too, right? That is, often someone requesting a refund does not seem like the kind of customer you want to invest in - after all, they are saying pretty clearly that they are uninterested enough in your product that they don’t even want it around anymore. Especially with bottom-line forces working against a lenient refund policy, it’s easy to write these folks off.

That’s not quite right. I think we should still think of people who have purchased a product and sought a refund as customers, and take care of them with the same care and hospitality that we take care of our more orthodox customers. Here’s why:

The hardest part about getting customers is awareness, right? Building the brand so that people know you, and have certain expectations and understandings about your company. If someone has not only heard of your company, but has purchased something from you, the hard part is done. Awareness accomplished. They are part of the population who is aware of your company and its brand - especially for smaller companies, this is a part of the population we should take care of, and a difficult refund system directly punishes those people.

I’m inclined to push for as flexible a refund policy as possible; put the decision to refund or not refund into the hands of your service staff, and then trust them. If you don’t trust them to make the right call, that’s not a refund question, that’s a hiring/training question.

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