Why people can't be replaced with computers....unless we let them.

Recently I ordered pantry items from a new company.  I was excited to have my favorite items delivered and at a 25% discount.  Woohoo!  Oh, wait, the discount maxes out at $20, darn!  Nonetheless I purchased $118.58 worth of items and saved $20.  I'm thrifty because I have expensive taste but on a teacher's budget.  You do what you've got to do when you care about what food you put in your body.  

When the package arrived I did something unheard of (for me at least), I compared the packing list to the items in the box and I was missing a $3.95 tube of toothpaste.  I checked again and sure enough, no toothpaste.  Darn!  

I signed into my account online and proceeded to chat with the customer service rep.  He was great and quickly issued me a refund of $3.52.

$3.95 Subtotal-$0.67 Discount (Extra 25% off, cap at $20)$0.24 Tax$3.52 Grand Total

Hmmm, that didn't seem right.  Thankfully I figured out that I really only saved 16.9% (not 25%) per item and $0.67 is 16.9% of $3.95, but wait a second, why was I missing out on the full $20 savings that I should have earned?  That seems unfair since I wasn't returning something, but rather they were correcting a mistake.  

I wasn't satisfied and I made that clear to the customer service rep.  It is silly to argue for a $0.67 refund, but to me it was the precedent being set.  The rep blamed it on the system automating the refund and stated he understood what I was saying and would pass it on to his supervisors, but there was nothing else he could do.

Why have a customer service representative available if they can't actually reason and make matters right?  Since when do we let the system be in control.

There isn't a one size fits all recipe for refunds when discounts are capped like this. The system isn't trained to adjust when a special case arises.

Context also matters. 

This was their mistake, completely.  I shouldn't lose out on a simple $0.67 savings because the system automated the refund.   What if the item that didn't ship was worth $17.99? Now I'd be missing out on $3.04 of my original capped savings of $20.  

Perhaps the people should do some thinking and be able to override the system and make it right, taking into account context and special circumstances.

If I automated how I did things as a dean of students or a teacher (like the system) then I wouldn't care that the reason a student misses school so often is to take care of a mentally ill father who she fears will hurt himself in her absence.  The system would tell me to revoke her open enrollment status because she missed x number of days (insert sarcasm).   Never mind that she has adults in the building that are helping her work through some insanely heavy stuff that has happened to her as a young girl, on top of caring for a sick parent. That would be context.  

But, context does matter.  The student who is gone so often demands us to do better and consider her situation before throwing the system (aka the book) at her.   

A simpler case is why kids wear their hoods over their heads despite the no hoods rule.  Context matters.  Are they wearing a hood to shield their identity or their inebriated state?  Or are they wearing a hood to cover their nappy hair so their peers don't give them grief?   Yes, I want their hoods off so I know who they are and can keep intruders out and the school safe.  But, how we approach them about this rule: "TAKE OFF YOUR HOOD" versus "Please, take off your hood so I can see who you are" can make a world of difference.  The former can result in power struggles.  The latter might enlighten us to when they need a little compassion.  

The bottom line is that one size doesn't fit all.  We can't have the exact same response for every student.  We need to know the context if we are really interested in their success.  Computers can't always make sense of context.  Could we train the computer to take into account multiple factors like capped discounts, probably.  In my experience, however, we rarely do.  We need people to do that work.  Real, thinking people.