You always hear people say the customer is always right, but how often do companies stand by this policy?  Stew Leonards gets it.  They even carved this message into a large rock in front of their stores to make sure it was clear to their customers and employees.  If you are responsible for marketing, sales or service you should take a good look at your service policy.  It has been my experience that more often then not, companies try to prove to their customers that they are right, even if it means loosing a customer. It happened to me today with one of our smaller marketing partners.  I asked for a small refund because of an error in their service and the response I received was “the contract states…”.

Now there is a time and place for contracts.  However in this circumstance I don’t care what a contract states.  Just show some good faith that you care about my problem and issue the credit.  99% of the companies we work with for this service will issue the credit and do so with a smile and an apology for the inconvenience.  The power of positive word of mouth is more effective then any contract or marketing effort while negative word of mouth travels faster, lasts longer and will make a contract seem insignificant.  I guess this company (intentionally leaving out the name – for now) doesn’t understand those basic marketing principles.

Let’s see how this plays out in the next few days but it doesn’t look good for the relationship.