Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You ask the store manager to exchange the piano.
Because honesty is always the best policy, you go back to the store and
explain the situation to the store manager. You recommend that the piano be
exchanged in order to keep the customer happy.
This is the real-life decision made by Paul Brown, a registered piano technician.
"When the piano came back into the store, I recommended to the manager
that he get three of the top piano tuners in the city to tune
the piano. He agreed that he would tell them nothing about the piano, only
to tune it," says Brown. "Each of the three tuners tuned the piano, and as
far as they were concerned, the piano was fine."
Meanwhile, the replacement piano went to the customer's house. The customer
immediately began to complain again about the "chiming" in the wires. The
store, after paying for many service calls and trying everything to satisfy
the customer, washed its hands of the piano. The manager told the customer
that there was nothing more that could be done.
"The customer decided to take the store to court, and he found a tuner
who said that he could hear problems that were in the piano, though he was
not a registered piano technician," says Brown. "The store countered with
four registered piano technicians that said there was nothing wrong with the
piano."
With all of the evidence in front of him, the judge asked only one question
of the store manager: Why had he exchanged the piano?
"The store owner said that he wanted to make sure the customer was happy,
and that even though he couldn't find anything wrong with the piano, he made
the exchange in good faith," recounts Brown. "The judge immediately countered
by saying, 'You admit that you had a defective piano by your actions of exchanging
it!'"
Even with all of the evidence on the side of the store, the store had to
refund all of the customer's money.
"By the way, the piano which was originally brought back to the store was
sold to another customer who is very happy with it," says Brown.