This past weekend I went shopping with my wife and we ended up at Marshalls. She was looking for a dress for a wedding we are going to next month. We finally found the perfect dress and headed up to the counter to checkout. To most guys this is the greatest moment of shopping, when you get to leave. We weren’t sure what it cost because it was missing it’s price tag but it was on a rack with reasonably priced items so I figured it couldn’t be to much.
When we got to the register to ring out we were informed that the dress was apart of a set so someone was sent to locate the other piece. They returned right away and said that the other piece was not found and so they couldn’t sell us the dress. What!!? I was astonished that they wouldn’t take my money. I explained that I was happy to pay the normal price even though the item was incomplete. Since the missing accessory was just a scarf we didn’t need it because my wife had other accessories that would work with the dress. The associate then explained that the piece would be held for 7 days and then marked down as a clearance item and sold. I then asked for a manager so I could see if there was anyway we could purchase the item immediately since we were leaving town in a few days. I got a generic answer again about their policy and was rudely told I would just have to wait to purchase the item later if I came back when it was on clearance. I was furious.
What a ludicrous policy (incidentally Wikipedia’s definitition says “A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s).“). There was nothing rational about that decision! Why wouldn’t you allow your customer to purchase the item they want to purchase? Even if that was standard policy shouldn’t a manager have enough common sense and authority to allow an exception in order to make the customer happy?
That is a policy that kills customers. I walked out the door and swore I’d never shop there again.
We all make mistakes sometimes when we setup our company and make new rules, policies, and procedures. If you do realize you’ve made a bad policy then CHANGE IT! Don’t allow your bad idea to kill your customers.
