Your responses are needed for this one -- Afraid to use the noodle?

I was at a local store the other week, and purchased a nice swing for our deck. It was nicely priced -- on clearance, so we were happy all around about it. Upon returning to the store about a week and a half later, I saw that the price of the swing was further reduced, by the better part of twenty dollars. Many stores have a price adjustment policy, where you can bring the original receipt to the customer service desk and get refunded the difference in price, provided you do so within two weeks of the original purchase.

I had my original receipt, so I went to the service desk and asked if I could get the difference credited back. The service representative said yes, that I could do that, and then she asked if purchased the item on sale. I told her that had purchased the item on clearance, and then she proceeded to tell me that I could not get a credit back on any clearance item.

I was perplexed -- I asked her why this was, and she told me that it was "store policy." Again, not quite following, I proceeded to ask that if I would be able to get a refund on the original swing with the original receipt if I were to return the swing I had purchased. Another woman working at the desk came over and said that I could, as long as the item was in "returnable condition," which I understood to be pretty darn near the way it comes before you start assembling the item.

Well, I had already assembled the swing at home, so then I asked for clarification, just to make sure my wife truly isn't right and I had actually gone nuts. I asked them, "So, you are saying that I can't get the difference in price, but if I were to actually return the item, get a refund, turn around and buy another at the other reduced price, that would be okay, right?"

They responded that, yes, I could do that. Okay, now I was following...Then I tried again..."So, couldn't I, just to save everyone the hassle, get credit for the difference, which would abbreviate that whole process?"

They answered no again, repeating that store policy forbid such a thing.

Then I phrased it a different way. "If I were to go over there and buy a new swing at the reduced price, and then turn around and return the newly-purchased swing with my original receipt, would that be okay?"

The second woman behind the desk said, "No."  I asked why I couldn't do that, and she said, "Because you just told us that is what you were going to do."

I flashed a big smile (and tried to suppress my hot-blooded, Puerto Rican genes my mother was so kind as to pass down to me), and said, "Well, if I come back tomorrow to return the item, or sometime next week, when you're not here, nobody but I will know the difference, and I'll end up getting the price difference eventually."

Finally, they didn't refuse me...Well, they didn't agree with me either, and it was clear I was at an impasse. I walked over to the swing display, grabbed a tag, bought the swing at the reduced price, and went home. The next day I came back, drove around to the back of the store, drove to the warehouse, had a worker load the swing onto my vehicle, drove back to the parking lot, parked my car, loaded the swing onto a cart, brought it in to the service desk, and returned it with my original receipt.  I ended up getting the price difference, in the end, as I had predicted.

I came across an article that totally resonated with my experience. The article was about how some organizations establish so many rules and procedures that employees have to follow that the employees lose the ability and freedom to just simply use their brains and exercise good judgement. Either those workers I dealt with at the service desk were extremely apathetic and unmotivated in their daily tasks, or they were operating in an environment had choked off their ability to exercise reasoning, judgement, and good old common sense.

In the end, who ended up winning? I guess I kind of did, but I still had to use up gas driving to the store an extra time, and I used up time to do it too...Not to mention that my satisfaction with what the store considered "customer service" was not very high. The store lost...Not only did the store eventually refund me the difference (unknowingly), think of where that silly swing traveled! From the warehouse to the store...Back to the warehouse again!

I am not saying that I feel a need to try to get around "the system," but the whole policy they had in place just didn't make sense. You can't tell me that deep down those workers at the service desk didn't know the policy was silly (at least a little). Maybe some of you think that people doing what I did is the reason silly procedures are implemented in the first place.

Perhaps you are right...But isn't a policy a bit absurd when it makes an otherwise honest person do questionable practices, just to get what they could have gotten very easily in the first place?  If the service representatives simply would have acknowledged that I could just as easily do what I ended up doing, and refunded the difference, wouldn't that have fulfilled the role of customer "service?"  Heck, they could have even pretended to return a swing and pretended to sell me a new one to make the paperwork come out.  The whole experience could have been better for everyone, including the women who got to hear me and see me as I was frustratingly trying to sort out the (lack of good) reasoning behind the store's policy.

Am I alone here?  Have any of you experienced a similar "lack of judgement" in a customer service or other interaction? Have any of you experienced exceptional customer service that you'll never forget?  I would love to hear from you. Please either comment on Facebook, or feel free to email me. I look forward to hearing about your experiences!

Have a great day, and best wishes!

-Victor