Know When to Quit

Last spring, Cindy bought a $50 blouse at a boutique. When she got home, she discovered a split seam. She returned the blouse and was given a store credit.

 

A month later, Cindy returned to redeem the credit, only to find the store shuttered with an “Out of Business” sign in the window. 

 

At a recent seminar, Cindy asked me what she should do to get her money back.

 

I told her, “Nothing.”

 

My reply puzzled Cindy. I had just spent 45 minutes telling folks how to deal with bad customer service. Why would I go against my own advice and tell her to take a loss and get over it?

 

Why? Because chasing down the store’s owners would cost Cindy more in time, effort, and energy than the $50 she’d already lost.

 

Cindy’s story is an example of why an important part of being a smart consumer is knowing when to quit. 

 

Sure, it always stings to lose money or be taken advantage of. But not every marketplace misstep is worth your time or effort to make it right. For example, it doesn’t make sense to run all over town to collect 50 cents lost in a soda machine.

 

Correcting a problem has to be worth your time. Usually, resolving customer-service situations eats into your personal time: the hours you would spend playing with your kids or indulging in your favorite hobby. That’s time money shouldn’t buy. In fact, I value my personal time twice as much as my work time. If you earn $20 an hour at the office, an hour of your personal time is worth $40.  

 

So if your dry cleaner fails to come clean on a damaged blouse that cost you $30, and you’ve already spent the better part of an hour hassling him or her, it’s time to move on. Find a new dry cleaner and enjoy the rest of your day. On the other hand, that $300 error on your cell-phone bill may be worth several hours of effort.

 

But, you ask, “What about principle?”

 

In most cases, forget it.

 

Fighting for principle is a different battle than trying to get honest value for money you’ve lost. Don’t get me wrong; I absolutely believe that a company should be taken to task over poor customer service; however, that’s an entirely different matter than whether or not a particular problem is worth your time.

Beating up on a company may feel good, but in the end, it will take your valuable personal time. The satisfaction will be minimal. It’s highly unlikely that your complaint would bankrupt a company or get somebody fired. Even a letter of apology from a faceless, soulless corporation rings hollow when you take into account the time it would take to get it.

 

If you decide that a problem isn’t worth your time, you don’t have to feel totally unsatisfied. You might feel vindicated knowing that companies with poor records of customer service probably don’t have much life left in them.