Who Gets to Say “Fix It”?

That is where many businesses wobble. Not because nobody cares. Not because the seller is lazy. Not because the team woke up and chose chaos with their morning coffee. Often, the problem is simpler and more dangerous: the person closest to the customer can see what needs to happen, but does not have the authority to make it happen.

So the customer waits.

The admin assistant must check with the owner. The packer must check with the manager. The marketplace seller must check with the supplier. The customer-service person must check with finance. The WhatsApp helper must check with “the lady who handles refunds”. The person who knows the customer is upset cannot approve the replacement, correct the listing, change the delivery expectation, process the refund, or stop the same mistake from happening again.

Everyone is involved. Nobody can decide. That is not a process. That is a waiting room wearing business clothes.

In South Africa’s growing e-commerce and informal-business landscape, this matters because customers are no longer only comparing products. They are comparing confidence. They want to know whether the business will still be there when something goes wrong. The National Consumer Commission and Consumer Goods and Services Ombud have already pointed to the cracks showing up in e-commerce: misleading advertising, non-delivery, late delivery, damaged goods, unsafe goods, weak return policies, refunds that do not materialise and counterfeit products sold through third-party sellers.

Those are not only compliance problems. They are decision problems.

Somewhere, at some point, someone needed to decide. Refund or replace. Escalate or resolve. Pull the listing or keep selling. Contact the customer or wait. Challenge the supplier or accept the story. Stop the promotion or hope the stock arrives. Fix the wording or let the next customer discover the same problem with fresh disappointment and better screenshots.

Many businesses think they have an accountability problem when they actually have a decision-rights problem. The team may know what is wrong. They may even know what would be fair. But if every meaningful action waits for one overworked owner, one manager, one supplier, one finance person or one person who “knows the system”, then the business is not operating with ownership. It is operating with a bottleneck in a branded T-shirt.

For small businesses, this is very easy to understand. The founder is often the buyer, the seller, the customer-service department, and the person who still needs to fetch the children. In a township business, a WhatsApp seller, a home-based side hustle, a maker brand, a spaza-adjacent operation or a small reseller setup, the owner may be the only person who knows the full story.

That can work beautifully in the beginning. Until growth arrives.

Then every exception starts looking for the same person. The wrong item needs approval. The refund needs approval. The customer complaint needs approval. The business may have more hands helping, but the decisions still live in one pocket, usually next to a phone with 47 unread messages and a battery on 9 percent.

That is how small businesses become fragile. Not because they are small, but because the power to fix things has not grown with the work.

Ownership does not mean the owner must personally touch every issue. That is slow-motion burnout with invoices. Ownership means the business has decided, before the drama arrives, who can act, what they can decide, and when they must escalate.

Draw the Decision Line before the drama arrives

In Lean Six Sigma language, we would talk about role clarity, escalation ownership and decision rights. In seller language, we can call it the Decision Line.

The Decision Line asks three questions before the next customer issue arrives wearing tap shoes.

That is it. Three questions. No committee. No ceremonial spreadsheet. No meeting where everyone agrees that “we need alignment” and then leaves with the same problem.

What can be fixed immediately? This question separates ordinary service recovery from issues that genuinely need a bigger decision. If the customer received the wrong colour, and the correct item is available, can the person handling the message offer a replacement immediately? If the courier delivery is late and the business already knows the parcel has not moved, can someone send a clear update without waiting for the owner to approve honesty? If the listing had a small error, can someone pause or correct it before the next customer buys?

These are not reckless decisions. They are controlled decisions. The point is not to let everyone do whatever they want like a pricing special at month-end. The point is to stop obvious fixes from being trapped behind unnecessary permission.

This is especially important where consumer trust is already under pressure. A damaged item, wrong product or unclear refund does not become less serious because the business is small. A customer buying from a WhatsApp catalogue still expects fairness. A buyer ordering from a marketplace seller still expects a remedy. A shopper collecting from a township-based seller still expects the product to match what was promised.

Informal does not mean consequence-free.

The second question is who can approve the fix? This is where many businesses become vague, and vague is where customer patience goes to develop a cough. If the answer is “the owner”, say that. If the answer is “the person managing the order”, say that. If the answer is “any team member can approve a replacement below a certain value”, say that. The title matters less than the clarity.

A growing seller might decide that the person answering customer messages can approve a correction, replacement or delivery update within defined limits. A small manufacturer might allow the dispatch lead to stop a shipment if packaging quality is wrong. A township entrepreneur might give a trusted assistant permission to contact customers and adjust collection times when supplier delivery runs late.

That is not losing control. That is designing control so the business does not need to phone one person for every pothole in the road.

The third question is when must it escalate? Not every issue should be solved on the spot. Some decisions need a higher level of judgement, especially where safety concerns, high-value refunds, repeat complaints, suspected counterfeit goods or public risk are involved. Escalation is not a failure. Escalation is healthy when it is clear, timely and owned.

The problem is when escalation becomes a place where issues go to nap.

You know the type. “We have escalated this internally.” Beautiful sentence. Very professional. Also, possibly meaningless if nobody knows who has it, what they are deciding, how long the decision will take, when the customer will hear back, and whether the internal promise to respond is actually being tracked. Good escalation sets expectations upfront, gives a realistic timeline, schedules a follow-up, and keeps that commitment visible until the customer gets an answer. Escalation without ownership is just passing the parcel, and nobody enjoys that game when the parcel contains a refund dispute and a customer with screenshots.

The Decision Line prevents that. It says: if this issue crosses a certain threshold, this person owns the next decision, by this time, with this update to the customer. That is the whole magic. Not fancy. Just grown-up.

For a small business, the Decision Line can live in a notebook. It can be pinned inside a WhatsApp group. It can be written on a stockroom wall. It can be a one-page guide saved on a phone. The format does not matter. The habit matters.

Wrong item sent: replacement approved by the person managing fulfilment if stock is available.

Damaged item received: customer sends photo, issue reviewed same day, outcome communicated before close of business.

Refund delay: finance or owner confirms status within one working day and tells the customer what happens next.

The customer should not have to keep asking, “Any update?” because your business has not decided who is allowed to decide.

Trust needs structure when the business grows

This is where the township and informal-business angle matters deeply. Many small enterprises are built on trust, speed and relationship. The customer knows the seller. The seller knows the supplier. The business runs on reputation, memory, airtime, WhatsApp, family help, local knowledge and the South African ability to make a plan when the plan has already left the group chat.

That is a strength. But when the business grows, memory is not enough. Trust needs structure. Relationship needs rhythm. “Ask me first” needs to become “here is what you can handle, here is when you call me, and here is what the customer must know.”

That is how a business grows. It gives people enough permission to protect the promise while keeping enough control to protect the business.

There is a fear, especially in founder-led businesses, that giving decision rights means losing standards. What if someone approves the wrong refund? What if they offer too much? What if they make the business look inconsistent? Those fears are not silly. Cash flow is real. Margins are real. Some customers will push boundaries until the policy starts sweating.

But the answer is not to keep every decision locked in the owner’s pocket. The answer is to define the line.

Below the line, the team can act.

On the line, the team checks.

Above the line, the issue escalates.

That gives speed without chaos. It gives flexibility without free-for-all energy. It gives the customer a business that feels responsive instead of one that keeps saying, “Let me check,” until the sentence starts ageing like milk in a load-shedding fridge.

Decision ownership also protects the people doing the work. A frontline person without authority is left holding emotion they cannot resolve. They must absorb the frustration, apologise for the delay, repeat the policy and wait for someone else to decide. That is not empowerment. That is giving someone a mop and refusing to fix the leak.

For the customer, it feels like indifference. For the employee, it feels like helplessness. For the business, it creates rework, escalation, poor reviews and unnecessary conflict. Nobody wins, except perhaps the screenshot folder.

This is why Ownership is not only about caring. You can sound warm, polite and deeply sorry, but if you cannot move the issue forward, the customer eventually hears the cage around your words.

The best service moments happen when empathy and authority stand in the same room.

A customer with a damaged item does not only need sympathy. They need a decision. A buyer waiting for a refund does not only need reassurance. They need a timeline. A shopper who was misled by unclear wording does not only need an apology. They need correction, both for themselves and for the next person.

That is why the Decision Line is not just an internal tool. It is a trust tool.

It tells the customer that the business has thought beyond the sale. It tells the team what they are trusted to handle. It tells the owner where they are genuinely needed and where they are simply being used as a human traffic circle.

And let us be honest. Some owners have become the traffic circle.

Every question goes around them. Every issue slows down. Every decision waits for a gap. Everyone hoots politely in the background. The business still moves, but not smoothly. Not safely. Not at the speed customer trust now expects.

That is not sustainable.

Ownership means giving permission before trust starts leaking

If South African sellers want a piece of the marketplace pie, especially in a market where e-commerce complaints are becoming more visible and consumer expectations are rising, decision ownership has to mature. Not because every small business needs corporate layers. Please no. The country has enough paperwork. But because every customer issue carries a decision, and every delayed decision becomes part of the experience.

That is where Ownership becomes practical. It does not ask the business to become perfect. It asks the business to decide who is trusted to act before the customer loses trust waiting.

So before the next issue arrives, draw the line. What can be fixed immediately? Who can approve the fix? When must it escalate? If the answer is “I will decide when it happens”, the business is not ready. That may work for one order, one customer, one small hiccup. It will not work when volume grows, peak season lands, a post goes viral, or three customers report the same issue before lunch. The customer should not have to push harder just to find the person with permission.

Ownership begins when the business stops hiding decisions behind good intentions and starts giving the right people the right authority at the right moment.

Because when something goes wrong, the most important question is not only “Who caused this?”

It is “Who gets to say, fix it?”

This is a personal thought piece, written from my own customer experience and process improvement perspective. It draws on publicly available information and reflects my own views.