Glastonbury had a refund blunder...and, we can all learn something from it.
I saw the news last night about Isobel Rider’s troubles with her knee and her refund protection plan at this year’s Glastonbury.
I’ve been a strong advocate for refund protection as something that is smart for consumers and sellers since the first time I came across refund protection providers.
So I read this story with a little bit of disbelief because it stands against everything about refund protection that is valuable to consumers.
Not to give you the whole story, but highlight a few key points:
Glastonbury offers a no-questions-asked refund period until May 3rd.
After May 3rd, you can use refund protection.
Isobel bought refund protection in October.
She hurt her knee at the end of April.
She found out a few weeks after May 3rd that her knee injury was serious enough to not allow her to attend the festival.
Isobel’s refund was denied due to a “pre-existing condition” that happened in late April when she purchased the policy in October.
Only once The Sun stepped in did Isobel get her refund.
This doesn’t seem like an honest business relationship between brand and consumer for the following reasons:
Isobel bought her ticket in October, 6 months before her injury.
Isobel didn’t know how bad the injury was until the festival’s standard refund window had closed.
The fine print said that this would be considered a “pre-existing condition.”
This is a horrible situation and one that highlights the importance of having the right partners in a few ways:
This reflects poorly on Glastonbury’s brand: No festival, promoter, venue, or act wants to have their name associated with screwing over someone that blew out their knee. This is a bad situation made worse by the use of fine print and illogical thinking on the part of Glastonbury’s partner.
When a customer has an injury or life gets in the way, you should be relieving stress and not adding to this: Life is stressful enough, but when you think you’ve bought a protection plan for your purchase only to have a pretty poorly written clause shut down your refund and cause you more grief seems underhanded…and, obviously, adds more stress to the guest’s peace of mind.
These kinds of stories harm your brand, sometimes irreparably: When something like this happens, I think about the parable of the rich man that lost all of his money. The question goes: “How did you lose your money?” The man replies, “Slowly at first. Then, all at once.” The same thing happens with your brand and the goodwill that they’ve earned over the years.
The solution here is simple:
Pick the right partners: Goes without saying, you need to pick a partner that is going to be an additive element to the service levels you offer your customers. In this case, Glastonbury had partnered with a firm that probably didn’t treat their customer the way that they would have liked or that the festival’s organizers might have if they had been the ones making the decisions.
In all interactions default to the human: We need more humanity in our business dealings. I’ve seen a terrible turn to people defaulting to the kind of thinking that goes, “I can do this so I will.” The default setting of everyone should be to act more empathetically and more human…it might cost you a couple of bucks from time to time, but I’m certain it will pay off in the long-term.
Always put the customer first: This should be rule number one. Just think customer first. And, in this case, that wasn’t the thing that happened.
This is an unfortunate situation, but one that we can all learn from.
What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!
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Glastonbury had a refund blunder…and, we can all learn something from it. was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group
