By Rich Gallagher, Point of Contact Group
Spring and summer are your busy seasons — which means many of you have customers who want schedules, pricing or extras you can’t say yes to. Here is an easy technique to send them all away happy.
I first experienced this technique at a sold-out major league baseball game. I had just paid $15 to park my car on a perfect Sunday afternoon and walked up to the ticket counter with my wallet in hand, clueless that the stadium was already beyond full. But instead of telling me “no,” here is what they said:
“It’s a beautiful day for baseball, and we’d love to see you get into the game. Even though we are totally sold out, I have a suggestion. We have a tradition here where season ticket holders leave their extra tickets at the gate, and if we have them, we give them away free. I can’t make any guarantees this close to game time, because we are really full, but we wanted to let you know. Good luck!”
I went to each gate. No one had any extra tickets. Everyone was as polite and helpful as the people at the ticket counter. And so it struck me: It was now 20 minutes later, I had just circumnavigated 10 city blocks, I had no ticket to the game, and I was walking back to my car…happy. And this fascinated me! Later I sent an email to the team’s HR director about this, and she called me back and explained that their employees were indeed trained to say this at sold-out games.
I call this technique the LPFSA: the low probability face-saving alternative. It works because instead of telling a customer “no,” you are instead giving them a gift — the gift of hope. As long as you are frank with the customer that it is a low probability — and honest with yourself that there is at least a small chance — there is nothing at all disingenuous about it. And it really works at helping people feel better.
Here is how you can put the LPFSA to work in your own tree care practice:
- Instead of saying “no” to a scheduling demand, offer to put them on a priority cancellation list
- Instead of saying “no” to a pricing negotiation, tell them you will make an attractive counterproposal — on your terms, of course — to help them meet their budget
- Instead of saying “no” to an unrealistic demand, offer to discuss it with people in authority at your business
Keeping happy, loyal customers is as much about psychology and communication skills as it is about pricing and terms. And learning good alternatives to “no” saves you from people’s instinctive feelings about rejection. By learning a simple technique — with an unpronounceable tongue-in-cheek acronym — you can make a real change in your customer satisfaction and profitability!
Rich Gallagher is a communications skills author, public speaker and psychotherapist. Gallagher’s training and development firm, Point of Contact Group, has trained over 25,000 people how to communicate better with customers and each other. His books include two national No. 1 customer service bestsellers and four books reaching the communications skills top 50.
Advice or suggestions provided by Mr. Gallagher are statements of general applicability that may or may not apply to businesses, whose circumstances and operations may vary. The opinions of Mr. Gallagher do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Vermeer Corporation, its dealers or its affiliates.