Yesterday, I received an email from my supplier, whom I have worked with for a long time. In the email, he mentioned that their company was reconciling the account and discovered that I had placed an order, but they hadn't sent it to me. Therefore, they owed me money.
I emailed him back and honoured his honesty. I recognised that he is a good role model for us to learn from.
I knew it would be easy for him to dismiss it and not act on it. I wouldn't notice anyway, as I have been placing multiple orders over the years, and that one was from so many months ago.
Someone like him gives me the confidence to work with other businesses and believe they will do the right thing.
On the other hand, I worked with a marketing agency for some months and cancelled the monthly contract. Later, I checked my account and discovered they took one more month of subscription fee without my authorisation, as they got my credit card details to take out the monthly payment.
I called and emailed, but the business owner wanted to avoid refunding the payment and act like nothing had happened. After many persistent phone calls, he said he would refund me, but I still haven't seen the refund.
This marketing agency makes me question whether I should give out my credit card to other businesses in the future. While it would save me lots of time, but it could also be risky.
When my emotions are affected by this kind of incident, I generally tell myself not to concentrate on just one negative experience, as many good business people have good morals.
After years of running my business, I realised that the best way to run a business is to be honest with clients. If I couldn't offer a particular service, I would tell them I could not assist them instead of handling cases without knowing what I was doing and disappointing the customers.
The more honest and transparent I was about my service, the more people wanted to work with me.