Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Gameface 101

The absence of new blog postings is a result of two things: my life is boring and when something does happen, I procrastinate writing about it until I forget it entirely.

Since Christmas Eve, not too much has happened however I do need to admit to the world that my Christmas hissy fit was entirely unwarranted which means I got my way.

The Monday following Christmas I called the furniture store and explained my dilemma of missing the sale of the chair I wanted. The salesperson tells me "yeah, sorry that sale ended the 24th" so I say "but I called on the the 24th to order it" (the fact that the sale ended that day was completely unbeknownst to me, but that's besides the point) she responds by saying "yeah we were closed that day, but we had a sign on the door." Imagine hearing a piece of bubble gum snap here.

A sign?

I CALLED to place the order, so the fact that they hung a sign was completely lost on me so I nicely explained my situation again to Bubble Gum Judy, this time using my I'm-going-to-be-super-duper-sweet-as-sugar-douse-you-with-kindness-in-hopes-you-give-me-what-I-want voice. She eventually tells me to call back the following day to speak to Heidi (the original salesperson I spoke to) at 11:00 because that's generally when she gets here and you'll want to catch her before she goes to lunch.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere.

The next day, I put my Gameface on and picked up the phone.

What's my Gameface you ask?

My Gameface is a three level approach to getting what I want from a customer service/salesperson. And being in the customer service industry yawn I know when someone has their own Gameface on and truly, if they're nice enough and have mastered their Gameface I do want to help them more than some jerk-off with a chip on his/her shoulder, so keep that in mind peeps.

Level 1: Connect on a personal level, earn their trust. Greet the person by name as if you're best friends (please note, excessive use of the first name is just creepy so watch out. I'd say a maximum of 3 times per conversation is the limit). Ask how their holidays were. Comment on the weather or the roads or anything to relax the person as if you're just a cool dude that wants to hang instead of having an ulterior motive.

Level 2: Ease your way into what you want from them in a slow, casual way (and there's a bonus if you can squeeze in some self dafamation which makes them feel like they could be a hero if they help you). This usually sounds like "...say Heidi, we spoke about a chair I wanted to order a couple of weeks ago and I know it's been a while since we talked about it, but I saw that there was a sale and I was a complete idiot because I missed it! It sounds like it ended on Friday, which is the day I tried calling. I swear I have the worst luck! Ugh. Is there anything I can do?" <- see how helpless I sound, you WANT to help me don't you.

Level 3: Proceed to level 3 only if you've tried repeating level two with more nicey-nice in your voice. Nicey-nice goes a loooong way but when nicey-nice doesn't work pull on the professional-but-firm-you-don't-want-to-mess-with-me pants. (Please note, the PBFYDWTMWM pants are not, I repeat NOT an excuse to be rude, condescending, demoralizing, patronizing, or a jerk because we lowly customer service folks have blogs that we may hate on you to people world-wide XXXXX XXX you know who you are and I hate you. But I digress....). This PBFYDWTMWM role is simply a little stronger way of insinuating "Hey, Heidi, you told me about your grandma's rice pudding, we're totally buds now but I'd really appreciate it if you could do me a solid and sell me the chair for the sale price. Yo."

And voila.

The chair is being delivered on Thursday.

Here ends the lesson.

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