For Christmas, my husband gave me a beautiful crimson cashmere sweater from Ann Taylor, a favorite store of mine. I was thrilled with the gift, but it was a little tight and so I wanted to try on one size bigger and see which one fit better.
I checked out the return policy on the back of the receipt, and it said something along the lines of,
"Ann Taylor will accept your return or exchange of unworn, unwashed merchandise. We will credit you for returns accompanied by an original receipt either in the original form of payment or as a merchandise exchange. Final Sale items may not be returned or exchanged."
This all sounded fine to me. There wasn't a 60 or 90 day policy so I didn't rush about heading into the store. January & February happened, and the sweater sat on my dresser as Jared and I spent the weekends in New Hampshire and Washington DC with family.
Then last weekend, we were home, we had nothing to do, so I grabbed the sweater and receipt and headed to the store. When I got there, I went to the counter to see about the exchange and learned two things.
1. Ann Taylor does not except exchanges or returns of items purchased on the website in their actual stores.
2. If you return an item more than 60 days after purchase, they will only refund you the current selling price.
Now, neither of these rules is crazy. The problem is that Ann Taylor wasn't transparent about the rules on the receipt. The return policy that I checked out the day I got the sweater indicated that I could head to the store and made no mention of a time limitation. I even checked it a couple of times over the month of January to make sure I wasn't going to run into a problem.
Is this the end of the world? No. But, it has ultimately resulted in a waste of my time and loss of money, as the sweater is now selling for 50% less than my husband bought it for. That is NOT a good customer experience, and it's enough to ensure that I don't buy from Ann Taylor any longer.
If Ann Taylor had been completely transparent, put the full details of their return policy on the receipt and made it easy for me to understand what the restrictions were, I would have happily sent the sweater back in December and would still today be a happy Ann Taylor customer. Instead, I won't be shopping there any longer.
Make sure you are transparent with your customers. It goes a lot further and things that might seem bad end up not being as big of a deal.