Three short stories make the point in this post: When they tell you “There’s No Way,” they’re usually wrong.
This week I contacted an airline miles program. We’d received a warning letter that our miles would soon expire. The man who answered the phone gave me his name and asked how he could help. Fine, to this point. Although I should point out that his voice had an edge to it and an ever so slight hint of him having done this thousands of times. It wasn’t excessive, so I continued explaining that I needed a pin to go online, purchase an item and save my family’s miles. The trouble, he informed me, “You are not in our system.” I’d opened the account, so surely I must be there. “If you haven’t used our airline in the last two years,” he explained, again as if he’d said it thousands of times, “you lose your miles.” “But I’m sitting in front of a letter that gives us several more days.” He paused then said, “I’ll look again.”
Well, you get the picture. I was nowhere to be found. Therefore, I could not get a pin, could not order an item and so could not save my nearly 19,000 miles. He looked up other family members and told me that my husband had flown their airline in 2007, but not me. That sounded fishy. I remember being with him on that trip. “We have no record of that.” That, it seemed, was the end of it.
This is what we describe in Comebacks as a choice point. Certainly I was feeling increasingly annoyed. Part of me wanted to say, “Now how ridiculous is all this? We have a letter here warning us that miles will soon expire on an account I opened, but there’s nothing I can do. Do you know how WRONG that has to be?!” But instead, having written that it’s good whenever possible to give the person the chance to do the right thing and because at the YMCA class I’m taking we’d been talking about open questions, I said, “Maybe this is a supervisor issue.” There was a brief pause again. “This doesn’t qualify as a supervisor issue.” Well, I knew there is no such thing — not for me anyway. I could have shouted: “Are you kidding me. I’ve been with this blasted airline for over a decade and this isn’t a supervisor issue?!” But, this was a choice point. Going with the program, I did not insist on talking with the supervisor. Instead, I offered calmly: “Well, what else do you think we could do to find me in the system?” I heard some clicking of his fingers on his computer — then more. “Kathleen, when you opened the account what e-mail address were you using?” I gave it to him. He clicked and clicked some more. “Ah. There you are,” he said nearly as relieved as I that this was over.” We’d been talking for at least twenty minutes and it seemed much more. I’d put the ball in his court, indicated that I’d go further if need be, but asked him what he could do to make all of this go away. And he came through. I praised him highly remembering his name. And he was pleased indeed. He advised me on how to proceed to save my miles, another set of steps, but progress. Then we bid each other a most excellent day.
My husband almost always leaves to me the handling of customer service, registration at hotels, dealing with bank managers and potentially confrontative situations like this. I can go from “There are no rooms” at a hotel to a full ocean view with breakfast and snacks. First, you have to operate from the assumption that what you want can be gotten. From there you need to “pulse the person” you’re dealing with and “suss the situation” and work both without anger, using effective comebacks, to the destination.
Sometimes the person you’re dealing with isn’t going to be able to help. He or she is simply an obstacle. It’s best to hang up and call back. I’ve taught my children to observe the nonverbal actions of a person before deciding to approach him or her to, for example, return an item to a store.
As my husband and I entered a pharmacy with two desk calendars I’d bought that turned out to be for 2010 rather than 2011, I noticed that the woman at the register looked stern and was speaking to another woman who didn’t seem to want to be there. I turned to Chris and said, “Oh no. This isn’t going to be easy.” The other day I’d mentioned to a pleasant young woman my intention to return the calendars. “No problem,” she’d said. “Bring them anytime.” Where was she now that I needed her?
We decided since the calendars cost so little we’d do a little experiment. I approached the woman at the counter, and guess what? She resisted the trade of calendars but I walked over to get the newer one. She was not pleased. “I’ll take back one,” she said. The other had been opened and past months discarded. “I won’t be able to do anything with this.” Now, let me mention something here. We are regular customers of this pharmacy. The item was only $1.49. And she was risking losing a customer. This is the kind of person you should avoid. Either decide it was worth the fun of knowing you were right about her, return later, or see a manager. But trying to find the right comeback in a situation like this might eventually work, but is it worth it? Usually not.
But let’s look at another:
I walked into a post office to renew a passport and watched two people in front of me be treated abruptly by a clerk. The clerk next to him was smiling at people and being helpful. As you’ve probably experienced, I was supposed to go to the grumpy, superior clerk because his previous customer walked away from the counter a split second before the friendly clerk’s customer. Instead, I walked past his post and went to her. He called to me, “Come here!” I shook my head, “No.” “I do all the same things she does,” he said firmly. I smiled, “No. I don’t think you do.” He got my drift. And I went and had a lovely, helpful exchange with the friendly clerk. The other was fuming. But it isn’t my job or yours to make people like that happy. They are supposed to be delivering customer service. So, telling them that’s not what you expect to get from them is just fine. Life is simply too short to deal with such people.
A friend of mine told me of considerable frustration he experienced trying to get through to a hospital in England to speak with his mother. He was worried and upset and the telephone company representative was telling him that the hospital wasn’t taking calls from the U.S. and that there was no way to get through. Berry was getting angry, no doubt his blood pressure rising. The result did not improve. The woman was sure nothing could be done. What did he do at this choice point? He said: “I’m experiencing a lot of anxiety right now with my mother in the hospital. Is there any way you can find to help me?” And that’s exactly what she did. She went a step further and found a way to get him through. Had he yelled at her, he probably wouldn’t have reached his mother. Appealing to empathy can be a very good comeback to rejection, especially if the situation is one the other person has likely experienced.
These situations show why we need a repertoire of comebacks and steps we can take when trying to get the good service we deserve. We’ve all driven home frustrated after dealing with someone who just couldn’t help us because of some rule or just because they didn’t feel up to it. Usually there’s a way around such situations. It’s a matter of learning the ropes — of assessing the person and situation, considering your comeback options and experimenting. What better time to try this than as we approach the holidays? There should be ample opportunities to try out your customer comeback repertoire.
Comebacks at Work: Using Conversation to Master Confrontation here
