Hi guys, it’s Daniel from Sweating The Big Stuff, back to try and kick Kevin’s butt in another personal finance argument.
The other two arguments have been really fun (for me at least) because I won both of them, so this time I’m going to give you an unpopular argument. Instead of being the good guy, I am advocating being a jerk in order to save money and get what you want. I wouldn’t defend it so vehemently if I didn’t truly believe in it. I’ll provide plenty of examples that if you really want positive results, you need to complain, argue, and threaten to take your business elsewhere. Good luck to Kevin, who is posting on my site that being friendly can make or save you money in negotiations.
First, let me give you a disclaimer. There is no one size fits all. Being friendly and asking nice works sometimes, while threatening to quit or leave can have great results as well. What I’m going to show is that being hostile is the way to go more often than not.
What I mean by hostile is not going in and immediately demanding that you get your way. There’s a little more subtlety to it. But instead of asking nicely, you have to show that you are serious.
Usually the person at the bottom of the chain, the customer service representative, yields little power. They can make small changes to your account, but in order to have any real success, the problem needs to be escalated. So the first step to a good negotiation is to make sure you speak to a manager, or someone up. It may not make the customer service rep happy, but it needs to be done.
I’ve gotten plenty of money back on my cell phone bill, including a whopping $105 when I was getting a free iPhone and 2 months of service. What I didn’t include at the time is how I was able to do it. I called and complained. I wasn’t so nice about it. In fact, I knew that I shouldn’t ask nicely for a discount, but instead I should threaten to leave AT&T. And of course, it worked.
Going back a little further, I wrote about how to negotiate with wireless carriers. Guess what? I wasn’t simply giving suggestions. I provided a real script that I used. The first thing I did? Asked to cancel my account. Again, amazing results with savings of $108.
Too much AT&T examples? Let’s move over to banking. Bank of America tried stealing $25 from me so I responded with a few trips to a branch where a nice woman named Jenny helped me. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get the job done, so I went to twitter, and sent an unfriendly comment about Bank of America. Behold, within 10 minutes I got a message offering to resolve the issue. Not only did they give me my $25 they owed me, but they gave me an additional $10, too! Booyah!
A friend just told me that he got into an argument with Paypal over their using his funds first instead of charging his credit card, and it caused him lots of accounting problems. What did he do when they said it was their company policy? He filed a report with the Better Business Bureau. Sure enough, within 2 weeks, they offered to fix his issue in return for him withdrawing his claim.
In all these cases, asking, smiling, and being friendly didn’t get the job done. But escalating, threatening to use a different service, and complaining publicly did. Why? Because getting people to act is easier when they are trying to put out fires rather than simply helping someone.
If you guys think I’m right, let me know in the comments below. Then head over to Kevin’s post on my site and berate him for being naive. Really Kevin, smiling is enough to get people to help you?
Also, feel free to check out some of our previous arguments below:
I don’t know all of the details, but it sounds like in the case of AT&T (I read the script) and PayPal, it was the customer’s fault for not knowing the policies and offerings of the companies! It’s no fault of PayPal’s that the user agreed to the terms of service and then complained when they didn’t suit his preference. I’m not saying it happens all of the time, there are legit concerns that customers have and wrongs definitely need to be righted, but I’ve seen too many people bitch about something not going their way when they are to blame for it. Raising your voice and getting upset at a company representative just leads to high blood pressure and a sense of entitlement. I go for the calm route. If I get a little inconvenienced, oh well, life isn’t about convenience. That’s my take!
I agree that it raises your blood pressure, but even when the customer is wrong, by arguing, he can get his way! Sure, being a jerk isn’t fun, but it’s downright effective!
Great post! But Alas, I have to side with Kevin on this one. (I commented on his side, too.) There’s a time and a place to be aggressive, but most of the time, you’ll get way better results by just being nice. I, too, have had great success negotiating a lower cell phone bill, lower cable and internet bills, reversed bank fees (even if the fee was incurred because of my own stupidity!), you name it.
I’ve also had really great luck getting free (!!!) repairs on my computer at the Apple store, even after the warranty had long expired. Just by being nice, reminding them that I’m a loyal customer and will continue to be so, I’ve probably gotten a couple thousand dollars of repairs done on a laptop and a desktop PLUS one time they gave me a brand new iPhone when my cat dropped mine in her water dish (this voided the warranty). When this happened, I saw another girl come in with a broken iPhone, be really rude and aggressive about it, and they just shook their heads and refused to do anything other than sell her a new phone, whereas I walked out with a brand new iPhone ten minutes after coming in. I didn’t even have to ask for itโjust told them what happened and asked if there was anything they could do to help me.
I dare you to go into any store and get them to replace something that //you// broke while being hostile and aggressive. ๐
That’s a great example. You said it right; if you’re even remotely at fault, it seems like the only way to get your way is to lay on the charm! ๐
I’m siding with Kevin also. I think it is our obligation as sophisticated internet users to begin negotiations with a friendly attitude.
I think what works even better than planning on using a hostile attitude is to be ORGANIZED, anticipate a negative response, know what you’re asking for, know the terms & rules, and have a pre-designed action plan ready if you’re not getting what you want. (Kevin’s car story about the extra $1000 is a great example of all these things).
Remember, as a personal finance blog reader, you are probably smarter than the people you are interacting with. So get your act together in advance (because you’re so smart) and you probably wont even have to be hostile. ๐
I think it also pays to know that the first-line people you will be speaking to are probably just doing a job and they didn’t make the rules. They are sometimes empowered to get things done and often times they aren’t. Understand that these people may be getting a beatdown all day long from upset customers. Often times they will be happy just to speak to someone who isn’t immediately yelling about something!
What also may work when calling into mega callcenters is to just hang up and call back if things aren’t going right (and don’t even mention your prior call). You will almost always get a different person with a different attitude and these call takers may not have any access to the fact that you just called in minutes before.
True story – I had a DirecTV access card reflashed remotely (instead of waiting for a replacement in the mail) by the hangup and call back method.
True story – I had to return something I bought at Office Depot and the girl behind the counter actually said “thank you for not yelling at me” (unquote). Jeez really? Was Daniel just in here? ๐ ๐ ๐
I love the idea of hanging up and calling back. Sometimes you just know you have a grumpy person. The key is to figure out they are grumpy early and get off the phone before they start leaving notes in the system.
That picture is priceless!
Sorry Daniel, but no, hostility doesn’t work as well all of the time. I am a customer service rep in my day job and I will bend over backwards to make the day awesome for nice people. Seriously, I have made semi-miracles happen. I won’t do that for mean people and sometimes I will even go out of my way to make their days worse. Just being honest. Mean people suck. It is not my fault that my company is run by greedy bastards but I will try to help you if you are nice to me. Otherwise, you get to wallow in beauracracy. Sorry.
Also, you can threaten to leave nicely. I do that all of the time with AT&T Uverse and continue getting discounts so I don’t switch to another cable company. I politely explain that I will leave for a better deal, so could we work something out? It works every time.
If I have had a bad experience, I act like the rep is of course on my side and whine politely about the problem until I can get to someone to make it better.
In fact, I have only gotten pissy with two reps ever and it was because the reps themselves sucked.
Asking politely is the only thing that works for me – whether on the giving or receiving end.
Once we cancelled a bank account and a third party survey taker called me to enquire about the service we had with the ex-bank. It was a really busy time. I asked her to wait for just a sec, spoke to my 4 yr old daughter for just one second to stay quiet while mommy was on the phone and went back to the phone and said ‘I’m sorry, can you please say that again why is it that you called? – all the while being very polite. The lady just shot back in a loud rude voice – EXCUSE ME, didn’t I just say that? with an attitude.
๐ฎ
[Lady, I’m doing you a favor by giving that survey. I do not get anything from it. Why on earth did you think it was okay beign a jerk to someone who was trying to help you do your job?]
No, I didn’t give the survey. I gave her a piece of my mind. And I know the tape was being recorded and yes I know how calling centres work. (She could have lost her job that very day, after she got me irated.)
Her being a jerk, didn’t get her any reward.