I recently had to return an item that I’d bought online. It’s free to return the item in-person to one of their retail locations, or $10 to ship it back. There was a store nearby so I elected to do an in-person return but the experience shows what can happen when software and processes are developed without involving the user.
The store clerk was friendly and helpful. He asked for my online order number, found it in the system, and told me that the money would be refunded to the original form of payment used for the purchase - in this case, PayPal. Everything is going smoothly to this point.
Then he says, “We don’t print receipts, so you’ll receive an email confirming the return within 24h, and the money should be refunded in 2-3 business days.”.
I have returned the product but I have not yet recieved the refund, nor do I have any evidence that I returned the product. If either the email confirmation or the refund doesn’t arrive then I have no recourse. The clerk was very understanding when I explained the predicament to him, and jumped into problem solving mode with, “OK, how about I let you take a photo of my computer screen with your phone?”
This was a satisfactory solution and we finished our business but this awkward situation would not have occurred if anyone in “corporate” had thought about it for a moment or had taken the time to talk to a store clerk or two.