Q&A: “They asked for a refund after three hours of coaching…”

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

After completing two long sessions with a client, a new coach receives a request for a refund. She's done all this work, now her client wants a refund. Should she revise her policy of money back with no questions asked? Money back guarantee, you can get your money back at any point, even after a bunch of work has been done. Is this a good policy?

Should she make a change? And by the way, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I love hearing what our listeners are working through, especially those new side hustlers, new small business owners, people who are trying to build a new income stream, whatever it is. And of course, this is a frustrating experience.

The one that our listener is going through, not listening to this podcast, that should not be frustrating. But what she's encountering, this is the kind of thing you sometimes deal with, especially in a new business, when you're trying to figure out who your ideal customer is, what's the best way to market to them? How do you best provide your service and so on. So let's see what we can do to help. They asked for a refund after three hours of coaching.

Detailed question and my answer coming right up. [Music]

Hey Chris, this is Marsha and I just had a frustrating experience and wanted to get your input. After completing three hours of coaching, split into two different sessions, a new client emailed me to ask for a refund. Technically, I do say on my website that satisfaction is guaranteed, but I've never had anyone actually go through the personalized training I provide and then ask for their money back. One time someone quit early in the first session, but that was different.

Since I have the guarantee, I'm going to give them their money, but I'm annoyed by this experience. Should I change the language on my website to avoid this in the future? Or just not worry about it and assume it won't happen often? Thanks for your advice. [Music]

Hey Marsha.

So first things first, I'm really sorry about this experience. It does indeed sound frustrating and annoying. You know, you have this guarantee on your website. It exists to provide reassurance. It's there for a potential client who's like, "I'm not sure if this is for me or not, "but here's a money back guarantee." But obviously the guarantee is not meant to exist you know, forever.

It's not meant to be taken advantage of. Again, it's just there to provide reassurance. I mean, I think it's probably good to modify it to be available up through the first session, like that other example you mentioned. If they continue after that, if somebody goes to a second session and a third and beyond, it's probably safe to assume they're happy. So you could make that change.

But overall, like otherwise, you know, if this were a common problem, if it was happening, you know, frequently, you might want to remove the guarantee entirely. A lot of coaching and consulting doesn't offer a guarantee. So that's totally normal. But I think hopefully this is a one-off kind of experience. You're fairly new to this.

So if you have 10 more clients and you know, no requests like this, then I say you're kind of out of the woods. That's my two cents on that. But again, frustrating I know, but keep working hard, focus on all those other clients. And listeners, if you have a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Let me know your challenges, your successes, anything you'd like to share with our global community.

I love featuring different projects here, so let me know. And of course you can subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for today. My name's Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]

- From The Onward Project.