QMS, interesting WiFi solution, lousy return policy

Here’s another marine WiFi system, this one QuickerTek’s $1,000 QMS (QuckerTek Marine System). The release and web page are light on specs, but this seems to be a high powered WiFi transceiver bridged to an onboard WiFi LAN such that any computer onboard (Mac or Windows) can get online (which, by the way, is the hot ticket system amongst some rec.boats.electronics geeks). It sounds interesting, if pricey, but what really got my attention was this note at the bottom of the product page:

“No returns. All sales are final. This is what happens when the few abuse our good graces, install our products, sail around with them for a couple of weeks, soak them with salt water and then return them with no reason given. We don’t like it either…”

Well, I wouldn’t even consider buying expensive hardware under that policy. I think QuickerTek has ignored an important lesson of modern retailing: A company hurts its best customers, and itself, by basing policy on its worst customers. I would refer them to Paul Hawken’s classic Growing a Business, which splendidly lays out the smartness of generous customer service, and also to L.L. Bean, the Maine business which may have invented the no-questions-asked return policy. I once got a behind-the-scenes tour of Bean’s and naturally asked if the famous policy wasn’t abused. The answer, delivered with a smile, was something like, “Hell yes! For instance, we’ve tracked one guy who’s had the same pair of boots replaced 22 times. But the guarantee is so good for our business that we’ll never change it!”