Fees

I love fees.  “Overdraft fees.”  “Online purchase fees.” “Late Fees.” I’m sure you can relate.  Nothing feels better than having an extra fee tacked on to the original price.  It’s better than taxes.  Today, I experienced this joy at Al’s Formal Wear.  Apparently, Sunday is a business day (rentals are due the next business day).  My bad.  I apologized for the late return.  And then they offered me a glorious gift – a nice $23 fee!  I could have sworn the woman at Al’s told me it was due Monday, which made sense anyway, but it wouldn’t have mattered.  They really wanted me to have that fee.  I tried discussing it with the guy there, but he insisted that I accept their fee.  He just knew it would make my day.

Really though, not only do fees like this hurt the customer, but do businesses really think it helps them?  If they had forgiven the fee (or perhaps even just cut it in half) due to my misunderstanding, I would have left with at least some feeling of gratitude and would have been more likely to use Al’s or refer people there for formal wear in the future.  Instead, I leave feeling angry at their apparent lack of care for their customers, resolved never to use or refer Al’s to anyone.  So they get their 23 bucks now, but lose hundreds in the future.

Do fees make sense for anyone?  Apparently they are profitable.  But it seems a company that charges no fees or that has an extremely gracious fee forgiveness policy could profit even more from the positive impact this would have on their customers.  They would at the very least generate more customer satisfaction, which seems like something most businesses would (or should) care about.  Maybe I can use these trends…

I want to start my own tux-rental company built on ultra low-cost rentals and ultra high-quality customer care (using strategies like late fee forgiveness).  I want to start my own non-profit bank (called Stick-It-To-The-Man Bank ©) designed to treat customers like people instead of resources – the polar opposite of banks that thrust their customers into debt with outrageous fees to drive up their own profits.  Or, at the very least, I want to find places like this…

Quit charging me fees!!