Dymocks bookstores doesn’t share a mission statement on their website. They do however have a page describing their history and approach and the statement below is, to me, roughly a vision statement.
“As a family owned business and the oldest Australian-owned bookstore, Dymocks prides itself on meeting the leisure, learning and gift needs of all booklovers by offering superior customer service and an enhanced book buying experience.”
Borders Australia, has a mission statement:
“To be the best-loved provider of books, music, video, and other entertainment and informational products and services. To be the world leader in selection, service, innovation, ambiance, and community involvement. We recognize people to be the cornerstone of the Borders experience by building internal and external relationships, one person at a time.”
But after a recent experience, I would suggest that only one of these retailers is living up to their mission statement.
A consumer’s mistake
My father bought my wife a book for Christmas. It’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” the first of a highly successful trilogy of crime novels by Stieg Larsson.
My wife already has this book so we asked my father if he had kept the receipt so that we could change it. Unfortunately, he had not kept the receipt but he told us that he bought it from Dymocks.
I looked at the book and saw that it had the sticker still on it. So we headed over to a local Dymocks store to try to exchange it. We wanted to simply swap this book for the second book in the series which is sold for the same retail price.
However, after we asked Dymocks if we could exchange without a receipt we were told quite sternly “Absolutely not. No receipt. No exchange.”
A bizarre policy
This seems ridiculous to me. Lets look at the underlying transaction happening here. Essentially, one book in perfect condition that can be sold on is swapped for another book of the same value from the same store. There is no loss of revenue for the store and it’s quite a standard practice for stores to offer exhange. Fair enough, having the receipt would provide some validation that the book was bought there. But people do make mistakes and lose receipts. The book still had the Dymocks tag on it after all! Other than not having the receipt, what else was different?
Lets say we had the receipt. The book would have been swapped immediately. The unwanted book placed back on the shelf and sold at a later date – and we’d go home happy and pleased that we were given the second book.
I didn’t give up – but recognising that the store manager wasn’t going to budge I headed over to another Dymocks. Once again we had the same stern refusal. This now really irritated me.
What was the logic behind this? I’m not asking for cash! I just want to swap the book? Why do you need the receipt? Can an exception not be made to support your supposed goal of “superior customer service and an enhanced book buying experience” Clearly not.
A better experience
I recalled the year that I spent living on student exchange in the United States while at university. Customer service always seems much better over there than here so I decided to try a tactic that worked for me there a few times.
I went to the nearby Borders store here in Sydney (Borders being a U.S. firm) and explained the situation to the customer service rep. I showed her the book and she saw it was unused, in perfect condition. I said that all I wanted to do was swap it for book two of the series.
The clerk immediately told me that this would be absolutely fine. She helped me find the second book in the series in the store and processed the transaction. Borders received the unwanted book and I walked out with the desired one. I’m happy. My wife was happy. Borders was obviously happy.
Small things make a big impact
I can’t say that I will never shop in Dymocks again. I may leave buying a gift too late or need a book in a hurry and Dymocks may be the only available option. But given a choice I will certainly select Borders over Dymocks.
I think this is an example of how overly strict rules around customer service can create a negative result for businesses. Here I am ranting about how irritated I was by Dymocks’ hard line, and simultaneously praising Borders for their comparably outstanding customer focus. For practically no effort, and for no negative financial impact, Borders has won me over.
Small things eh?
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