Penalize Your Customer? WHY!!!!

We just had abysmal, outrageous, shitty customer service with Vietnam Airways (big surprise, when it comes to customer service in Asia, they are polite but customer service is ^$&% pathetic!) as we tried to change our flight by a couple of hours due to the fact that our VISA to enter Vietnam was going to be delayed a few hours and what did we get;


Words and phrases thrown at us like "Can't", "Penalties", "Increased Fare", "There is a problem", etc., etc., Every %&^% reason they COULDN'T help us and EVERY %$^% REASON THAT IF THEY DID, THEY WOULD PENALIZE US!!

We were in a predicament with an airline that had a shitload of empty seats already, bringing us a to a country SCREAMING for tourist revenue. All were asking to do was change our flight from 7AM to 5PM to get on the SAME flight, a flight that had even MORE empty seats than the one we were going to be on in the first place....and all they could do was talk about "penalties, penalties, penalties!!" Why......WHY......WHY...do companies have policies with "Penalties" built in for clients. WHY would you ever want to penalize your client? With competition so stiff and the cost is takes to GET A CUSTOMER in the first place, why on God's Green Earth would you ever penalize your clients!!??

Look, I can see putting something in writing with Penalty Clauses if you are a hotel that doesn't want to get stiffed for a group of rooms that cancel at the last minute, or a restaurant that makes food in advance for a large event....but for almost any other business this is suicide. You have absolutely NOTHING TO GAIN but a few dollars in the short term and I can GUARANTEE you will lose that customer in the LONG TERM. Any company that penalized me in the past for whatever reason, I would obviously pay....give them a few choice words that sometimes would make a longshoreman wince, and then I would take my business elsewhere. Not sometimes...ALWAYS! Period. The end. I would NEVER GO BACK TO THE BUSINESS AGAIN and I would make sure to tell everyone I knew.

You fight, kick, claw and battle to get clients and then when you finally get their business, to penalize them on a mistake they make during their relationship with you is assinine. Think of the goodwill you will gain that when they DO make a mistake with you and they DO need your understanding, you "waive the penalty fee" with a smile and say "I totally understand, no problem." How far will that go in comparison to the measly money you would have made on the penalty fee?

There is a reason that the Ritz Carlton is the Ritz Carlton; to them their customers are GOLD and to my knowledge they do not advertise any "penalty" clauses anywhere in their brochures or marketing collateral. They treat their customers problems on a case by case basis because every customer is different and every situation is different, therefore they are not locked into indiotic policies on how they handle a situation. They take it as it comes and use superb judgement

In closing if you have any policy in your business that penalizes a customer, threatens late fees, interest or other derogatory language that gives a negative connotation LOSE IT NOW! The revenue and goodwill you will gain from deleting verbiage far and away outweighs the miserable pennies you will gain by fighting and bitching with the customer when or if they do screw up. The LAST PERSON ON EARTH you want to penalize is your client. They are the SOLE REASON YOU ARE IN BUSINESS. Think about it