Customer Service
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Have read some cool books on customer service mostly to help with the Travel Business. So today I had an opposite experience. For our office move we bought phones that were priced at more than we were quoted so naturally we haven't paid the bill yet. Now the phone store isn't really at fault because our 3rd party phone guy was the one that gave us the cheap quote.
So they called today looking for their money and rightfully so. So I'm trying to explain our situation and she blasts me because we are using the phones, so they work, so we owe....technically she's right and I'm at fault. So I'm trying to non- challantlly coax her into the old adage "the customer is always right" even though we are clearly wrong. She's not buying it...
I say we are pissed off because we were told one thing and then quoted another...and that we are not paying until we return these expensive phones for cheaper ones. I have her attention now....I continue with... this is totally not your company's fault it is third party guy's but can you atleast now acknowledge our situation.I can clearly see where you are coming from can you see where I'm coming from?
And then she takes a 180 and starts quoting me on cheaper phones that we can exchange for the old ones at prices closer to the price we were quoted by the 3rd party phone guy. She saw that buddy mishandled us and she was now in a postion to help rather than banter. She asked for us to pay half the bill in good faith. In fact by the end of the call which began as a credit call, she was saying don't worry, call me at the beginning of next week and we'll sort you out with some new phones.
Lesson learned: People will respond favourably to you if you tell them they are right first and then you explain your situation. I think this is actually from that book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" which I haven't read but browsed through at Chapters yesterday.
All I actually had to say is I completely understand where your coming from and it's totally not your fault and we will get some good faith money to you as long as you consider what has happened to us and help to fix it.
Even though technically the issue had nothing to do with them, they are in the service industry and have no choice but to concede that the customer comes first.
posted by aforward @ 10:10 AM,
