Trust

Yesterday, I went to my local Big Lots saver store to find a retractable sword for my Toastmaster's meeting (don't ask).

Giant "burled wood" mugs I painted with Cathy last year

I ended up purchasing several giant mugs I plan to paint. While unloading the clinking ceramics into my car, I realized I had been overcharged for 2 extra mugs. That's a $6 dollar mistake in their favor. At this point, I'm wondering...is it really worth my time to go haggle and harass these poor checkout clerks over 2 silly ceramic mugs? My time is worth more than that.

I decided to try it out. I loaded all the mugs back into the cart, and took them back in. Politely, I pointed out the mistake to the clerk who had helped me. I offered that instead of trying to do a return, I would gladly just take 2 extra mugs to speed things up. By the time I got back to the line, another clerk had taken over the register. Here we go, I thought...

To my surprise, the new clerk took me for my word. She said that was fine, and let me roll out the door, 2 pre-paid-for extra mugs in hand.

Many businesses have ceased to trust their customers. They force them to wait in line, fill out paperwork, go through hoops to correct mistakes that may not have even been theirs. It's easy to pin the Big with Lots of blame for our cynicism when there's all the hoops to go through. Unfortunately, I know from my experiences that it's necessary.

We as customers haven't made it easy for businesses to trust us. We are no longer genuinely interested in creating a fair exchange of our hard earned money for valuable goods and services. Many folks plain outright steal, cheat, lie, and embezzle their way into a good deal. What's up with that?

It's so refreshing to have an interaction with a business that treats us like human beings. When they take us at face value, trust their customer and are on the same side as us... we all win.

It's like the story of the woman who would order a pair of zillion dollar designer shoes from Zappos.com on Monday, wear them through the week to work, and then return them at the end of the week. Zappo's corporate culture allowed the customer to be right (although, in my opinion, she was completely wrong). Can you imagine the buzz that created around her office? She must have looked like the fool, while Zappo's got a word of mouth reputation for making customers feel human again.

It's a genuine interest in creating the win-win for customer and for business. When we do that, our customers feel safe with us, and trust us enough to refer their friends, family and neighbors.

So to you at Big Lots, thanks for trusting me. I'll be back with my $6 bucks to spend it with you.