Today's lesson in how to provide good customer service comes courtesy of Staples. Unfortunately, their part in the lesson was crappy service that reminded me what NOT to do.

I got a new Staples flyer in today's paper and there was something on sale that caught my eye. I went in to pick it up tonight, but when the cashier rang it up it was at the regular price.

When I pointed the flyer out to her, she called her manager over to override the error.

When she asked him about it and pointed out the flyer price, he pointed to the start date on the flyer as if she was some kind of idiot, and of course the flyer didn't start until tomorrow.

I asked if they could sell the item to me at that price today, particularly since there was a big stack of the flyers sitting on the counter right beside me - which tells me that they're active.

His response? No, we can't do that but you can come back anytime in the next week to get a refund for the difference.

Huh? You're telling me you expect me to make a second trip just to get a refund to match the sale price?

In other words, they expect the customer to go out of his way to live within their silly policies, when the end result is the same either way. They're going to make the same amount of money whether they sell it to me at the sale price now or I come back for a refund.

And there were plenty of the items in stock, with no apparent limited quantities mentioned in the ad, so it didn't appear to be some kind of limited special.

Needless to say, I didn't buy the item. I actually went down the street to Best Buy and spent $10 more for the same thing (which was still half the regular price of the item at Staples).

Besides being fodder for today's blog post, it was also a good reminder for me. If you set up any kind of unnecessary hoops for your customers to jump through, there's a pretty good chance they're going to move on to your competitor who understands how to make the customer happy and doesn't have those hoops.

Don't let yourself get so caught up in what makes your life easier that you lose sight of what's really important - the paying customer.