Double Charged

Our computer system is wonderful. Earlier this month there was a complete meltdown that caused lots of headaches but we got it taken care of.......we thought.

Today I got a phone call from a customer claiming her credit card had been charged twice. At first I thought she had misread her statement or something, but after hearing that the date was the same as the meltdown, I took down her account number and contact info and promised to look into it. I called the appropriate person in the office, explaining that the date coincided with the meltdown, and left her to investigate it.

A few hours later I received a fax with nearly FIFTY customer account numbers and expiration dates. They had ALL been overcharged on that date and I was to credit their accounts. Talk about a headache! By the time I was done I was cross-eyed from the small print and making sure I input the correct account numbers and return amounts.

I then called the customer who had brought it to our attention, apologizing for our error and informing her that her account had been credited but it might take a few days to show up on her statement. She was very understanding and polite the whole time. She also seemed surprised that we took care of it so quickly.

You see, in our initial conversation I told her it might take a few days to research the issue; by handling it the same day we surpassed what she expected of us. Had I promised it to her that day and it took two days then I would have fallen short of her expectations. Never promise anything that you can't deliver.

(LAG learned absolutely nothing from the situation I wrote about on Monday. She believes she did nothing wrong because the part COULD have arrived the next day. But the fact is, it DIDN'T and there was actually a very low probability of it coming that day and the customer was disappointed. Even though the customer has the part now, she may not shop at our store in the future, all because of a promise that was impossible to keep.)