When you sell to the retail community for a while, there are some things you learn, such as when it is best to catch the owner at the store or not to assume that the person you are speaking with can't be the owner. Anyway, you get the point; you pick up tips along the way, often after some stubbed toes, of course.
Well, one of the things you learn is that successful retailers cherish every customer, coming to know the value of each gained and each lost sale. With this in mind, sales professionals are prepared to discuss how important it is that a check service shows respect to the consumer. They know that nothing, not store policy, financial desperation, or lack of professionalism, should cause that consumer to shop elsewhere.
If you live in Orange County, California, you may know of a program called the "Bad Check Restitution Program." (Similar programs are in place elsewhere in the country.) The Orange County program started about eight years ago when merchants were encountering so many NSF checks, that they enlisted the help of the county.
The program, which targets consumers who write bad checks that total less than $1,500, works likes this:
Retailers
notify officials of the bad check.
The
checkwriter is found and ordered to enter the diversion program,
or face criminal prosecution.
The
checkwriter must also attend eight hours of counseling, pay $100
to the program, and make restitution to the
merchants.
Is this the way merchants ought to treat customers? Research shows that most bad check writers are not crooksóthey just make mistakes. Do merchants want their check-writing customers to be forced to attend the equivalent of traffic school for one mathematical mistake? Do you think these merchants will see these customers again? Check guarantee would definitely be a better way to solve the problem, and retain the customers.
