Terms of Service & Customer Service
I had an interesting experience today with a business and I thought you'd all benefit from this, especially if you run a business with customers for which products or services are provided.
I pay (re-occuring) for a product from a small online business. I will not name name's here but this company recently changed a huge feature in what they're selling. In fact, it changes what they provide completely.
I called complaining of this feature change. There was no notice of the change on their website or social media accounts and their bi-weekly newsletter mentioned no such change either. This was uncontested by them, there was no notice of the change. I requested a refund of the service or for the online product to work one last time as originally intended (until this pay period ran out, you can say). I was met with neither.
Why? "Our terms of service say we can change what we want at any time." I couldn't believe they were serious. I wondered how many other companies thought they could hide behind this response? So, I thought I'd write this post to benefit the WarriorForum I've benefited from.
Terms of service does not give you a free pass on customer service. Changes to your terms of service will likely protect you legally, but it is not an excuse to not inform your customers. You must inform customers of changes. Every major, successful business does this and if they do not, they apologize and make it right. Even the smallest of serious startups give advance notifications. If you do not, your customers will be unhappy and they will leave.
I pay (re-occuring) for a product from a small online business. I will not name name's here but this company recently changed a huge feature in what they're selling. In fact, it changes what they provide completely.
I called complaining of this feature change. There was no notice of the change on their website or social media accounts and their bi-weekly newsletter mentioned no such change either. This was uncontested by them, there was no notice of the change. I requested a refund of the service or for the online product to work one last time as originally intended (until this pay period ran out, you can say). I was met with neither.
Why? "Our terms of service say we can change what we want at any time." I couldn't believe they were serious. I wondered how many other companies thought they could hide behind this response? So, I thought I'd write this post to benefit the WarriorForum I've benefited from.
Terms of service does not give you a free pass on customer service. Changes to your terms of service will likely protect you legally, but it is not an excuse to not inform your customers. You must inform customers of changes. Every major, successful business does this and if they do not, they apologize and make it right. Even the smallest of serious startups give advance notifications. If you do not, your customers will be unhappy and they will leave.
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