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I want to share this question i was emailed:

“I was shopping at Wittner Shoes last night, picked up a bag that was clearly priced and took it to the counter to purchase only to be told it had been priced incorrectly. The bag originally should have been $220 down to $119 the tag was labelled $79.95 down to $39.95.”

The Assistant Manager was very helpful & tried to get a hold of her store and regional manager to get an override to no avail.

Today the Manager has called to say they will not sell me the bag at what the label price was because the label can be peeled off.”

My reply:

“They technically can remove the item from sale, reprice it then put them back on the floor……. This actually happened in my shop and I sold the item to the customer, removed the others and corrected the price. They may have been better off to split the difference with the customer?”

This is a really interesting situation isn’t it?  And one I posted on my Magnolia Solutions facebook page to see what others thought:

A reply from an online retailer:

‘a few years ago they would have admitted their error and given the bag to the customer at whatever the reduced price it was. Nowadays they say and do whatever they want to make a buck!!’

My response:

‘but they didn’t make the buck and the time and energy that the staff spent actually cost them even more money – bad business AND bad customer service!!’

Another reply from a retailer:

‘Tough. I agree missing out of the sale is stupid but todays market selling something for less than it was paid for is also not an easy decision. I think I would have taken the hit for goodwill or explained the mistake and offered for at least cost. Yes I have assumed that the wrong price would have to be lower or close to cost price. ‘

Another reply from a retailer:

What is really unusual is that it appears the wrong label was attached in the first place, and then it was still discounted incorrectly as well. It’s amazing they picked up on the error at all!
I agree with above, because there were so many errors, I would have taken the hit for goodwill 🙂

Another reply from a retailer:

If this happens in my store I offer at cost and give them a freebie as a token of appreciation. Most customers are fine with this. In a big store like Myer though I would expect to be given the price.

This whole conversation was interesting for a few reasons:

1. This is something that can happen easily in a business, especially one the size of Wittner, yet they did not have an appropriate strategy or process in place to handle it.

2. They did not reply to my post although they were tagged which shows that they either do not monitor facebook or that they think that ignoring it will go away – neither of these is appropriate social media strategy.

3. These large stores / chains are run by people who are not empowered as people on the shop floor should be.  3 of the 4 responses above are by retailers who own their business and the 4th is a manager who runs it like her own.  Staff are only as good as the management!  Another reason to shop in independent stores!

The person who sent the email did finish it off by saying that Wittner had lost a loyal customer for life!

In your own business, prepare for everything and have a reply / strategy / process prepared for every customer service scenario!

Another reply from a retailer: