Comments on: Easy Methods for Negotiating with Customer Service Reps

By: Weekly Round-Up: Save your Money Edition

Weekly Round-Up: Save your Money Edition — Sun, 10 May 2009 16:16:08 +0000

[...] Negotiating with Customer Service Reps: I found this to be a necessary skill to have, no matter what the economy is doing. Lowering your expenses is a smart move. [...]

By: Jerry

Jerry — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:21:16 +0000

These are all good ideas, but my favorite is to keep records and ask for a supervisor. If you can tell what day and time you called, and who you talked to, it can lead to much better service. We used that with our old insurance company when they were upping our rates and they agreed to hold them steady… but then we dumped them anyway after finding a better rate through my alumni association!
Jerry

By: Canadian Personal Finance Blog » Blog Archive » Random Thoughts: For all you Mothers

Fri, 08 May 2009 06:06:28 +0000

[...] Four Pillars write about Easy Methods For Negotiating with Customer Service Reps , also remember the Hammer method [...]

By: MLR

MLR — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:50:00 +0000

Great advice, I find being a considerate person is the best technique every time

Please, thank you, etc…

By: Mr. Cheap

Mr. Cheap — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:24:11 +0000

BASS: Thanks for the title, I’ll look that up!

By: BigAssSuperstar

BigAssSuperstar — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:57:06 +0000

I use that ‘broken record’ technique a lot, and it works. I picked it up from the assertiveness training book “When I Say No, I Feel Guilty” by Manuel J Smith. It’s full of handy scripts and techniques for dealing with all sorts of situations like these.

By: Mr. Cheap

Mr. Cheap — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:35:57 +0000

Mike: That’s definitely a good (and easy) suggestion as well. There’s no point complaining if you don’t give the company a chance to make it right.

guinness416: The EXACT same thing happened to me (with Bell). I sat around all day waiting for the technician, then when I called they had no record of me ordering service (and wanted me to go to the back of the line as a new customer and wait 2 weeks for the next installation date). I was NOT impressed.

By: guinness416

guinness416 — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:22:37 +0000

Great post! One issue I’ve run into with number 4 when dealing with Bell (the worst company in the western world) is that they’ll simply deny your prior conversations took place. Even when you have the ID numbers and times and screenshots of online chats. May work better with smaller companies.

I also agree “speak to the manager” is useless for phone transactions.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:41:44 +0000

Lots of great advice.

One more suggestion – sometime you just have to ask. We had problems with our dryer a while back and I complained about the service so they gave us a free service call which saved a bit of money.