The first time we hosted a family reunion for my wife’s side of the family, our oldest grandson was 13 years old. He was the oldest of our grandchildren and would be attending the party along with his younger cousins and second cousins. In the preparations leading up to the reunion, he came to me and said, “Papa, I think it would be great for the younger kids if we rented a bouncy house.”
We found a place that had a $99 special for a bouncy house and booked the rental. On the morning of the event, the house was delivered along with an electric pump to inflate it. We ran a heavy-duty extension cord out of our bedroom window to the pump so we could inflate the house. On the day of the event, our oldest grandson spent more time in the bouncy house than anyone, including the many adults who partook.
Bouncy houses can indeed be a hit at an outside party. It was no surprise, then, when I received an email from E.F., a reader from Santa Rosa, California, telling me she had rented a bouncy house for her daughter’s birthday. She rented from the same company she’d rented from several times before noting that its workers had “always been professional and prompt.”
But this time, the pump broke 15 minutes after the house was set up, and it deflated. “No one was hurt,” E.F. reported. But the operator had no way to fix it. “So that was it.”
Several people at the party, including the worker from the bouncy house company, suggested she ask for a refund. “To me, he filled his obligation,” wrote E.F. “He was as surprised as the rest of us at the equipment failure. I don't consider a bouncy house to be of such importance that I expect him to carry multiple pumps with him.”
E.F. writes that while she knows it would be fine to ask for a refund, it seems the wrong thing to do. “Your thoughts?” she asked.
While E.F. is being understanding and gracious about the mishap, I don’t agree that it would be wrong to ask for a refund on the rental of a product that didn’t work. While it might not have been the worker’s fault, she did pay to have an operating bouncy house at the party. Given that E.F. has rented bouncy houses from the company before and might do so again, if she doesn’t feel comfortable asking for a refund, she could ask for a credit for the rental of a future bouncy house.
Things do go wrong with stuff. But when we pay for something that turns out not to work, the right thing is for the company to offer to either refund the money or otherwise make good on that transaction. E.F., of course, can choose not to accept that refund and just live with the disappointment.
Companies should stand behind their products, even if they’re something not of great importance … though my experience has been that an operating bouncy house can be the thing that makes a great party sublime.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin
(c) 2023 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
No comments:
Post a Comment