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People are always complaining about the terrible service they receive when they arrive at a customer service desk. Sometimes bad service comes from untrained or disgruntled employees, but more often than not, the customer is the cause. When you have a situation that needs to be resolved, your first step is to correctly identify the problem and think of the best solution for you. Do not storm up and immediately demand that you be given a replacement item and $100 of store credit. It does not work that way.

In a calm and understanding tone, explain to the service representative what your problem is and listen to her solution. If it closely matches with yours, quickly decide if it is more important to get exactly what you want, or if this will work. If you must have exactly as you want and have been reasonable up until this point, calmly give your suggestion and ask what it would take to make that happen. As long as you stay calm and friendly, you will get much more out of Customer Service than if you got upset. If you cannot reach a compromise with the representative, politely ask to speak to a manager.
Notice how many times I repeated the word 'calm'. This is the key to getting what you want. Be calm. Be friendly. Be understanding. Be firm. The worst thing you could do is get upset and start yelling at the poor associate. They probably make minimum wage and I'm pretty sure they didn't cause your bread to become moldy, or break your alarm clock, or whatever it is you are complaining about. When you become irate and are no longer desirable to deal with, you will receive what the Customer Service Industry calls "Pushback". Meaning, the more heinous you become, the less they want to help you. I have intentionally gone out of my way to make sure the customer did not get what they wanted, simply because they started screaming at me for no reason- You can only have so many frozen chickens thrown at your head before you stop caring if this person gets a new waffle iron. Yes, that did actually happen.
Keep in mind that customer service is a hard job and if you want your problem resolved in a timely manner, you should be as understanding as possible and above all, stay calm.

Learn more about this author, Marzipan Borscht.
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