Customer Wants A Refund

What do you do?

[celgins]

If you have a downloadable product (i.e. document, video, software, etc.) that a customer is dissatisfied with, what do you do when they want a refund?

Obviously, they can make multiple copies of the electronic data and would stand to get the product and their money back.

[rocknbil]

What does your user agreement say?

[celgins]

That all downloadable materials are provided "as-is", etc., etc., etc.

Some customers are just headaches!

[spander]

What reason does he give for wanting a refund?

[kevinpate]

I'm no ecommerce guru. However, I suspect that it's sometimes better to refund & walk away, with minimal time invested (wasted?), than to hold tight and mess around with something (or someone.)

[bateman_ap]

I have had this from the stance of a consumer. I ordered some web templates that didn't do what they said on the tin. ie they claimed to be full CSS templates with no table makup, paid and downlaoded to see they were the usual, badly marked up table layout (this is one of the big boy template suppliers). Got in touch of tech support, customer services and they basically said "tough, bugger off, our T&C says all sales are final etc".

They will never get another sale off me ever. You have to ask yourself, do you want some bitter users spreading disatisfaction about you?

[celgins]

He claimed that the downloaded e-book wasn't what he expected, and he was very dissatisfied with it.

I'm no ecommerce guru. However, I suspect that it's sometimes better to refund & walk away, with minimal time invested (wasted?), than to hold tight and mess around with something (or someone.)

That's exactly what I just did. Didn't want the headache of fighting with a customer over an item that only costs $19.95.

I was just upset that he was able to download the material, keep it, and still get his money back...(all in the name of running a good business since we try to keep the customer happy)...

[jtara]

Give the money back. You just might save a future customer.

I recently requested a refund on a software product. It didn't work as advertised. My money was cheerfully refunded. Maybe a month later I got an email from the author saying that he'd fixed it, and wondered if I'd like to try a beta version. I did, it worked, I bought the product.

I'll buy future products from this company. No refund = no future products.

[TimmyMagic]

It should be remembered that there are many web businesses which sell just one product, or a limited range. Giving a refund in the hope that the customer will return at a later date is not very likely.

That said, it is sometimes best just to save the hassle and give them their money back.