I just read this story about a woman who went to JCPenney to exchange some curtains. She paid $15 for the first set of curtains and the new curtains were $15 as well. One would think that it would be an even exchange, but because the first pair she bought were now on sale she had to pay the few dollars difference.
I’m assuming that the woman didn’t have her receipt, otherwise it should have indeed been an even exchange. But let me explain something about the U.S. retail industry that irks me. If you don’t have your receipt for an item, generally what happens is that you get credit for whatever the price is on that day. For example, if you purchase an item that is $10 and the sale price is now $7, you only get a $7 credit if you want to exchange the item without a receipt.
There are sneaky customers who actually did pay the sale price and insist they paid regular price for an item. However, 99% of the time you should give the customer the benefit of the doubt. In this case it was only a $3.55 difference, so the cashier could have made an exception and overrided the price. I don’t know how strict JCPenney is on overrides, but there is definitely a way to do it, even if a manager has to do it. What bothers me about this particular transaction is that the cashier had that “this is just the way it is” attitude and the computer is King, so whatever the computer says that’s the final word.
With that said, here is my customer service tip for the day: Give your customer the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t, you stand the risk of calling them a “liar” and they probably won’t do business with you again.
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