May 12, 2008
You’re Only As Good As Your Guarantee
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
Mickie Rops asked a question on the ASAE listserve last week, and a few of the responses have left me scratching my head. She wanted to know if associations offer refunds for webinars or web conferences, in particular if someone claimed a technical difficulty.
A few of the responses have seemed near apoplectic at the idea of ever giving someone a refund.
I say — big mistake. You should be offering a 100% satisfaction guarantee on everything you do and sell (including membership). You should be offering refunds cheerfully and happily, without requiring people to jump through hoops to get them.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask questions — offer options (a free something, or a credit of some sort) — but ultimately, if someone is asking for a refund (or even if they’re just casually mentioning that they didn’t like something), that means that they are unhappy and your goal should be to make them happy. Give them a refund.
Remember, we are not in the transaction business, we are in the relationship business. Guarding over the money you’ve been given to perform a service or provide a product means that you are obsessing over a transaction and hurting the relationship. You may win the battle and lose the war.
Trust me, I know that there are people out there who will try to game the system and complain over every little thing in hopes of scraping back every nickel and dime. But they are the exception, and they can be dealt with (you should have some way of identifying repeat offenders in your system). A better plan is to identify the game players and then bar them from participating altogether. Don’t treat all your customers like the exception.
(By the way, I am assuming that what you are offering is of high enough quality that refund requests are relatively rare. If everybody’s asking for a refund — then they definitely deserve one, and you should rethink a lot of things.)
I agree!! The org that I spoke of (I’m on their volunteer webconf committtee) mentioned their current practice is to give the learner access to the NEXT webconference (rather than a refund)….to which I said, what if the topic is of no interest?!!! This is why I asked for sample policies for them. Knew there had to be better practices out there.
It’s a good policy to respond to dissatisfaction. But what about people who just change their minds?
They didn’t have technical problems with the webinar, they just forgot about it or chose to do something else instead.
When working for a running association, it wasn’t unusual for registrants to request refunds six weeks into an 18 week training program. They had never attended any sessions - they just changed their minds.
All of their materials had already been paid for so refunds would have been significant.
@David - We have faced similar situations with our 25 week graduate credit certificate program. To control the problem, we are very proactive in tracking attendance through the University staff administering the program, follow-up with no-shows, and make clear from their the beginning that refunds are only available for participants to request one before the second class meeting.