No one likes being asked for a refund. In fact, I find the thought of it stomach-churning. And when what’s being refunded is the product of your time, experience, and expertise… it’s tempting to put every obstacle you can think of between a customer and a refund. In this episode, I’ll take you on a journey from the 17th century all the way through the modern era of online business refund policies to answer the question: What makes for a fair refund policy?

Footnotes:

• About Josiah Wedgwood
• “Josiah Wedgwood: An Eighteenth-Century Entrepreneur in Salesmanship and Marketing Techniques” by Neil McKendrick
• “Beyond The Pottery: The Creative Giant, Josiah Wedgwood” on YouTube
• “They Broke It” by Judith Flanders
• “What a Hundred-Year-Old Department Store Can Tell Us About the Overlap of Retail, Religion and Politics” by Tobias Carroll
• “Many (Un)happy Returns? The Changing Nature of Retail Product Returns and Future Research Directions” Journal of Retailing
• Online Outlier & Regina Anaejionu
• More on “caveat emptor” (the buyer beware)
• “Is the customer always right?” The Merck Report, June 1915
• “Is the customer the enemy?” by Chris MacDonald
• “The Customer As Enemy” by Michael Schrage
• Kaye Publicity & Dana Kaye

 
 
 
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