There are companies who have built their reputation over years of service and by selling good quality products. The customers believe that the product may last for 3-4 years but and they don’t care what the policy of the company is. In case the product beats the standards of the company and lives a lesser life than expected, the company should ignore the replacement policy and should look for the reasons which are causing this depletion in standards. The customer’s interest should be kept in mind and the replacement policy should be ignored at times.
A best case example is BATA. The company has a proven track record of delivering a product which survives longer than any other brand. But guess what? The replacement policy is 3 months.
The company honors replacement in case the product is broken within 3 months, else not. What does this mean? There are possibilities where the product survives only 6 months or 12 months or may be 15 months. Shouldn’t the company look into the reasons of faulty product? I think reputation matters more than the policy. If the company loses even a single customer, it should matter to them.Extract from article in HBR – Most companies, however, do an inadequate job of managing their reputations in general and the risks to their reputations in particular.
They tend to focus their energies on handling the threats to their reputations that have already surfaced. This is not risk management; it is crisis management—a reactive approach whose purpose is to limit the damage.I believe that the company should take exceptional steps to manage its reputation and forget its policies which can ruin the customers belief in the brand.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-should-maintaining-reputation-credibility-over-rule-agam-gulati/