The Death of the “Extra Mile”

My wife ordered a pair of shoes from an online retailer a few weeks back. When they arrived, she realized quickly that they didn’t fit quite right, so she decided to return them. The company’s website and packing slip both described a 30-day return policy, so we had plenty of time to send them back. She put the box with the shoes and receipt in my office and asked me to take care of the return. “Sure,” I said about 10 seconds before forgetting all about it.

Fast-forward about 37 days. My wife noticed that I hadn’t returned the shoes, which were gathering dust in exactly the same place she’d set them over a month prior. A short blue streak later, I sat down at my desk and thought to myself, “Well, all is surely not lost — this company wouldn’t be so foolish as to deny a paying customer a little latitude for such an honest mistake. I’ll just fire off an email explaining the situation and they’ll take care of me!”

A few minutes after I’d sent the aforementioned email, I got a kind reply stating that, regrettably, they wouldn’t be honoring my return. Their policy was to disallow returns after 30 days and they had to stick to it, the message said. My initial reaction?

I was pissed.

My mind immediately raced with thoughts of how I could publicly shame this bunch of clowns into giving me my money back. “We’re certainly never shopping with these a-holes again,” I fumed inside my own head. Then I thought about it like an adult for half a second and changed my mind.

For the past couple of years now, we’ve been inundated with stories of companies — online retailers, specifically — that would do anything, including crapping on a burning copy of their own return policy, to ensure the delight of a customer. After all, whatever cost they incurred by treating this dumbass customer like nobility would be a pittance compared to the ill will that this dissatisfied nincompoop would both internalize and, given that this is the age of Twitter and Facebook and victimhood, spread liberally across the Internet. To hear these companies tell it, there was nothing more valuable on this planet than a happy customer, just like there’s nothing more damning than a scorned patron.

And let me tell you, I bought into this crap with my very bottom dollar.

We live in a climate of online business that worships the customer and makes the proverbial “extra mile” something that consumers not only expect, but will vehemently demand.

We’ve all heard stories of criminals who extort money from business owners in exchange for “protection”. I honestly don’t see how today’s entitled customers are much different.

“Man, it sure would be a shame if somebody started telling their Twitter friends and the rest of humanity that you don’t respect or care about your customers. Now, how about you take care of that return for me like a good kid?”

Part of what makes an unexpected gesture of kindness from a business is just that: it’s unexpected. The second we start kneecapping these business’ ability to really go out of their way to earn the trust and loyalty of a customer, that’s when they start going cold to customers as a whole and it’ll be like trying to squeeze goodwill from a hunk of slate.

We as consumers need to give businesses room to be excellent, to go the extra mile. Standing at the end of the “extra” mile looking impatiently at our expensive wristwatches as the shoe delivery guy huffs exhaustedly toward us might feel like the right way to assert our position as the customers that keep the toilet paper stocked, but in the long run it’s that kind of priggish, entitled behavior that will have our once-beloved shoe place taking more than a little joy in pointing at their return policy with a bitter, calloused finger.

And we’ll deserve it.

Photo by TheGiantVermin