What’s your Return Policy?

Expectations for return policies are changing fast. An old-school, 30-day, no-receipt-no-way could undo all your other marketing.

“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.”

–Michael LeBoeuf

It’s Sept 24. A customer walks in with one of your hanging baskets held high. It’s crispy from under-watering yet soaking wet from the deluge it got an hour ago.

The customer has no receipt. She bought it May 11. Your policy clearly states “90 Day Return or Exchange as long as it’s properly cared for.”

What do you do? Or more accurately, what have you trained your 17 year old cashier to do. You probably won’t hear about this exchange, but you will feel the effects of the toxic word-of-mouth that could come from it.

Expectations about returns have changed dramatically. When your customer can return a half-eaten box of cheese to Costco, your 15-day, need a receipt policy looks out-of-date very quickly. Like it or not, the rules are changing.

“Marketing”:

The word on the lips of every Garden Center owner right now is “Millennials.” But while we spend a lot of time thinking about how to engage Millennials with Facebook and signage, we forget that marketing happens every time a customer interacts with our company.

Your hours sign, bathrooms, staff name tags, and your return policy are all marketing. They are all messages we give to customers about how much we do (or don’t) value making their experience a good one.

We’ve gotten used to talking to Boomers about the intricacies of gardening. On the other hand, Millennials are usually feeling insecure just being in our Garden Center.

If we want a strong Millennial customer base, empowering them has to be at the heart of our marketing strategy. That means that every customer touch-point must send the same message.

If we publish a blog called “Orchids Aren’t as Hard as you Think,” and then slap a 30 day return policy on our orchids, we’re sending a dangerously mixed message.

The Power of “Yes”:

If you think of the most frustrating encounter you’ve had with a business lately, it probably involves someone throwing policy in your face. We’ve gotten so used to giving policy to our staff as a shield, that we’ve given them permission to use it at every opportunity.

When someone brings back a hanging basket in September, we can either hide behind policy and make ourselves look like a heartless corporation, or we could show our humanity, give them a new basket (which we would throw away soon, anyway), and turn a disgruntled customer into a word-of-mouth champion.

Why Not?:

“But everyone will take advantage of it.” That’s what the Owner in me argues, because Owners hate giving things away for free.

But the Marketer in me knows the value in making people feel good about their purchase. We guarantee this tree for 3 years. That hanging basket will be beautiful all growing season or we’ll give you a new one. This is magical stuff that will reassure your Millennial customer that, “this is our plant. It’s the best and we stand by that.”

I’ll end with this: do you require a receipt? In a time when you probably have all that person’s purchases in your POS system already, why do you need one?

There’s an opportunity with the receipts. Make not needing a receipt a value-add to signing up to your loyalty card (and by extension your email list). You’ll have their purchasing info on file, they’ll feel more confident in their purchase, and everyone wins.