No Hassle Return Policies
By Rob Gray
One time my wife returned the last bite of a
Subway sandwich and got her money back for the
entire sub. The 35 bites she had consumed plus
the one bite she handed back to the cashier. Not
that I witnessed the entire transaction. I didn’t.
When I saw her mouth pucker and her head turn
toward the unsuspecting, teenaged girl behind the
register, I slid out the front door and sat in our
car.
I knew what would go down. Sometimes the
haggling took seconds, sometimes ten minutes,
but the result was always the same. “The customer is always right,” my wife said, shutting the car
door and putting five dollars and thirty-one cents
into her purse.
I used to be her polar opposite.
Many years ago, my brother and I went into
BJ’s fuel stop in Pleasant Grove, Utah for lunch.
They had self-serve hamburgers that customers
could stack to the ceiling with garnishings for a
dollar ninety-nine. The sign on top of the building always made me smile: “Eat at BJ’s, and Get
Gas!”
I plopped my burger on the metal assembly-line
rollers that took the patty over a heating element.
When the hockey puck slid down the escape
chute, I pushed it on my bottom bun and headed to the topping section. After the mustard and
mayo, I added three slices of cheese, a pile of onions, some tomatoes, and a large skin of lettuce,
curiously seasoned with a light green sauce and
small pepper-corn-looking pellets.
My brother drove us back toward work. Famished, I pushed my creation as flat as possible
and began eating. It wasn’t until the last few bites
that I saw the caterpillar and realized the green
sauce was not seasoning. And the pellets were not
pepper corn.
But I didn’t go back to BJ’s for a refund.
Slowly over time, however, my wife convinced
me that if I’m not happy with a product, I should
return it and not feel embarrassment or guilt.
Merchants want satisfied customers, and sometimes satisfaction means returning a less-than-desirable product.
What a blessing this new philosophy would
become.
My return experience began at JCPenney a few
years back. I had purchased several pairs of pants
for our then nine-year-old son. As boys tend
to, he wore the knees out of each pair. And as I
tend to, I had thrown the receipt in the garbage
as soon as I brought the new pants home. “That
doesn’t matter,” my wife said as she dropped me
off in front of the store. “At worst, they’ll give you
in-store credit.”
I opened the doors and immediately saw the
“Returns” sign above a middle-aged man. I shuffled over. “I would like to return these,” I said,
placing the pants, damage down, on the counter.
He smiled. “No problem. Do you have your
receipt?”
What should I do? I thought. Start searching my
pockets? Tell him they were a gift? My conscience
quickly took over as I looked down and shook my
head.
“Okay, I’ll give you in-store credit. You can use
it any time you like.” Less than a minute later, I
walked out of the store, JCPenney gift card held