Stop Paying Customers for Failing to Issue a Receipt

No Receipt, No Problem
Stores should no longer offer $5 for failing to issue a receipt. Instead, they should offer $5 if customers have to stand in line for more than five minutes. When a store offers to pay me if I don't get a receipt, I secretly hope that they don't give me one. I don't mind asking for a receipt if I don't receive one, and I'd like to have the $5.

However, I would never hope to wait in a line for more than five minutes. Even if the store offered to compensate me for waiting, I would rather move through the line quickly than have the $5.

Add This to Your To-Do List
If you're going to compensate customers when your business fails to do something, make sure you're compensating them for something they don't want to happen.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Comments

  1. Ross SimonsJanuary 05, 2012

    While I like the idea (compensate customers for things they don't want to have to deal with) the receipt example was a bad example.

    Compensating customers for not receiving a receipt was actually a pretty brilliant move by the strategists that came up with the idea. The point that you miss is that it is a strategy that is not geared to the customers, but to the employees.

    For a long time, businesses (particularly food) had a major problem with employees charging customers but not actually completing the transaction and keeping the money.

    So let's say you get a $6 meal from Burger King. Before, employees would ring you up for the $6, take your money, and not complete the transaction but pocket the $6.

    Instead of installing cameras or complex software systems, the business strategists implemented these policies so that the customers themselves would keep cashiers honest.

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