SolveYourProblem
Article Series:
Start
An eBay Business
Is
an eBay Customer Always Right?
by Jeff Cohen
I can answer this question for you right now:
the answer is ‘yes’. In fact, the answer is ‘YES!’ – the biggest
yes you’ve ever heard. Of the course the customer is always
right. If you want to be a successful eBay seller, you should
go miles out of your way to make sure every single one of your
customers is 100% satisfied, however much time or money it
might cost you.
A dissatisfied customer will leave negative feedback, and
negative feedback is to be avoided at all costs. That one piece
of negative feedback will always cost you more than it would
have to deal with the complaint, whatever the value of the
items you sell. You should consider any positive feedback percentage
under 100% to be an absolute disaster, and a personal failure
on your part.
But What If…
But nothing! There is no situation where you, as a seller,
should get into any dispute with a buyer. Here are a few common
situations and how to handle them.
They
say the item never arrived: Politely ask the buyer to
wait a few more days to see if it turns up, and then email
you again if it still hasn’t arrived. If it still hasn’t arrived,
you should assume it was lost in the post somehow and offer
to send a replacement if you have one, or give them a full
refund otherwise. No, I don’t care what that costs you. Are
you serious about selling on eBay or not?
The
item has been damaged in the post: You must offer to replace
it or take it back for a refund without hesitation.
They
say the item doesn’t match the description: Resist the
urge to email back with “yes it does, you just didn’t read
the description properly”. Take the item back for a refund,
and edit your description if you need to, to make any confusing
points extra clear.
I’m sure you’re spotting a pattern by now. Offering a refund
will make almost any problem go away, and it really will cost
you less in the long run. Remember, one piece of negative feedback
will stay with you forever, while having a 100% positive rating
is like owning a bar of solid gold.
You should always handle customers’ complaints before they
complain to eBay – in fact, you should email them pre-emptively
to ask if they have any. Going through the dispute process
is time consuming, reflects badly on you and is downright unnecessary.
Are you still not convinced? Think this would only work with
cheap items? Well, you see, the higher the price of the items
you sell, the more your reputation is worth to you. Let’s say
you were selling $10,000 worth of items each week, for example,
and making a $1,000 profit per week overall. You might think
that refunding one customer’s $1,000 purchase would be a tragedy,
losing you your whole week’s profit. It’s far better to look
at it this way: if you don’t give that refund, then not only
will you lose the next week’s profit, but you’ll probably lose
a few weeks’ profit after that too. Now which option looks
better?
I absolutely can’t emphasize enough the importance of really
believing that the customer is always right.
# # # # # SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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