A customer's 3 word question about a refund made me see my whole job differently

This lady at the returns desk asked me 'is it worth it?' about a $14 blender she was returning after 2 months. It hit me that half my job is people trying to justify stuff they don't really want, and I used to get annoyed but now I just help them figure out what they actually need. Has anyone else had a tiny question like that reframe how you handle returns?

1 comments

1 Comment

benbrown24d ago

The $14 blender thing reminds me of a guy who brought back a $200 espresso machine because the steam wand was "too complicated." I spent 20 minutes showing him how to use it, and he left grinning instead of leaving with a refund. Tbh, that's when I stopped seeing returns as losses and started seeing them as a chance to fix a mismatch. Nine times out of ten, the product isn't the problem, it's that nobody explained how it fits into their routine. Now I ask "what did you expect it to do" before I even look at the receipt. Half the time we end up swapping it for something simpler or just showing them a trick they missed. It cuts down on repeat returns too, because people stop buying stuff that doesn't match their actual life.