Good Negotiating? Great Customer Service? Both?
Posted by Burt Hadlock on July 15, 2007
The car needed to go in to the shop for a while. It was not a very urgent repair operationally…just an intermittent window failure. More an irritant than anything else since the window only seem to refuse to go down at maddening times such as toll booths or parking garage exits.
Finally we get around to scheduling it in to the shop and got a less than $150 repair estimate.
A couple hours later we get the call. Seems the repair was more involved than originally thought. We’re now looking at a window motor replacement rather than repair and talking $600!
When my wife took the call she repeated the information back to the service agent for both clarity and for my benefit. Her reaction was perfect.
“Wow, that’s an unpleasant surprise and much more than your original estimate.” This was done in a calm and moderate volume. The service agent of course reiterated the unfortunate circumstances after which my wife calmly told him that the expense had now grown to a value that we felt obliged to research and get other bids for. We would call him in a few hours.
A couple hours later and before we actually did any research or made any calls the service agent called back. Having researched the amount of time that we had been customers and making notice that we seemed to bring all our service to the dealer they had arranged to have the car repair done at no expense to us. He went on o explain that the dealership and the repair center would split the cost.
Not a bad example of everday negotiating. We didn’t blindly accept the change in price nor did she lose her cool and blast the agent and make a series of loud threats and escalations. Her demeanor and patience surely contributed to the outcome.
It is important to note that the only part of this situation that she could control was her actions and her attitude. Another time we may have had to go elsewhere or may have found the estimate to be legit and have paid what was necessary.
It was an example of pretty great customer service too. The dealer wanted to keep a long time customer and build more loyalty so they did their research. While it is tempting to cast a cynical eye on this one and spend brain cycles on how they may have been trying to hustle us or imagine if the replacement was even necessary we ought not.
Thanks to a cool head and patient negotiating we won’t spend brain cycles wondering what might have been had we not paused before saying yes.
© 2007 Burt Hadlock
tags:
car repair,
estimate,
calm,
customer service
sonrisante said
Great story. Terrific example of a “flinch”. And the cool thing is that it demonstrates that “flinching” isn’t a tactic… it’s a sensible reaction. Like the idea of “natural consequences”. I appreciate your posting this story. I need to practice flinching, because I tend to “go along” because I don’t want to make waves. And if I do flinch, I’m often tense because I’m afraid of their reaction, and my tenseness comes across as brash, even irritated or angry; hyper at best. Calm, cool, collected, but a natural consequence, and even transparent to the degree the she showed a bit of vulnerability.