Learning to Trust: Why I Changed My Return Policy

I’m very good and expecting the worst from people. I’m not very good at expecting the best.

I was reading over my website’s return policy—because who doesn’t read website return policies—and I realized it wasn’t in keeping with how I wanted to treat my clients. Nearly a year after writing it, it had fallen flat.

I recently wrote this article about how a company I used to purchase from treated their customers poorly. After writing it, I realized my original return policy wasn’t in line with what I was saying in that article. The policy was uptight and demanding, putting all the burden on the client. I don’t know why I wrote the policy that way. Maybe I thought I was being clever. More likely, I was going on the defensive over a few people who might have ill intentions. Maybe I felt I had to plan for those few—you know, the type of people who leave the tags on their clothes so they can return them after wearing them.

But why penalize the vast majority of good, honest people just so I could defend against a tiny minority who might never even purchase from me? Why expect the worst instead of the best?

I was a bit embarrassed after re-reading that original policy. Editing it wasn’t enough. I had to start over.

Reading my return policy may not be your idea of a good time. But if you do read it, hopefully you’ll find that it’s  far more reflective of how I want to see and treat my clients. And I’m hopeful that I’m starting to look for the good in people instead of defaulting to expecting the bad.