How A $10 Exchange Ruin Customer Relationship Totally!
September 6, 2009 by Delphine Zhu
Filed under Local Stores
A true story happened to me yesterday afternoon. It was about how a little $10 exchange turns a royal customer into a raged customer.
It was on September 4, 2009. I walked into the Adidas Langley Store (20202 66 Avenue Langley, BC) with a receipt and a T-shirt. Because I found a small but an obvious hole on that T-shirt after I washed it the first time the night before. I like the color and design of that T-shirt so I decided to ask for exchange. I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal but I was wrong.
Adidas ruin customer relationship by $10 T-shirt
When I talked to an associate about the problem and asked for exchange, she ran to the manager to confirm. After 5 minutes she came back and told me that they couldn’t do that. Then the manager came up and said:”we couldn’t take it back because it is not the manufacture defect. It must be something in your washing machine which made that damage. Something sharp or a zipper…” But the truth is there is no pin, no hard sharp object, no button, no nothing in the washer except several T-shirts just like that one. How could a damage happened to that T-shirt alone?
As I insisted, that manager finally agreed to exchange it if I promised not to exchange or return ever again if same thing happens. So she means I make the damage by purpose?! I was raged. I got my exchange item and rushed out of the store.
To be honest, I was planning to buy several T-shirts and shoes for my husband and my kids after that exchange on that day. Seriously, it’s just a $10 case, but because of its “nice” professional customer service, Adidas lost over $200 sales. Maybe the manager was right that it was not the manufacture defect. But nothing worse than losing a customer even though she was right.
However they don’t know things can be totally different if they handle it the other way around smartly…
