Poll of the Day > Do you think a person usually gets better results from stores if they're mean?

(+) Yeah! (+)

...do you think that in these cases if you go in mean that you get better results?
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Inherently, as there's plenty of people willing to talk shit and kick up a storm so if you're not, they can shit on you.
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No, because I know how I behave in those situations.

If you are polite to me and I or my company has screwed up, I will do whatever I can to make it right for you. If you are an asshole, I will do the bare minimum possible while privately trying to come up with ways to inconvenience you further that won't get me in trouble.

I suspect most people are the same way.

I am generally polite when I bring a dispute forward and I find it works for me far more often than not. Yes, there are times you have to be aggressive, but those are relatively rare (and it should be noted that "aggressive" is not synonymous with "asshole").
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I've often found that the louder a customer is about something, the more wrong they usually are but anything short of bending over backwards for an entitled shithead tends to result in a shitstorm from corporate and to add insult to injury, the asshole usually ends up getting additional discounts for their horrible inconvenience.
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When I was briefly in customer service, I was more rewarding of good behavior than shitty behavior. Sometimes they would get what they wanted anyway despite their furious stupidity after going through me to a supervisor but often then, the problem could have been solved in their favor a half hour and several increments lower blood pressure ago had they just been kind in the first place. It doesn't really pay to be a dick about something, even if you are right about it.

No. We once had a lady angry because we wouldn't accept a return on an item she stole from us. We told her we were calling the cops so she left. We called ahead to the other stores in the area (of the same company, obviously), and sure enough.. she tried it at the other stores. They were ready with AP and police, though.

i worked in retail for a long time. i will say people who get upset will get better results than people who are ok and walk away. if they walk away there is no chance they will get what they want. If they get upset... there might be a higher chance that a manager will fold.

You know "give them the pickle" thing.
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ernieforss posted...

i worked in retail for a long time. i will say people who get upset will get better results than people who are ok and walk away. if they walk away there is no chance they will get what they want. If they get upset... there might be a higher chance that a manager will fold.

You know "give them the pickle" thing.

i kinda agree with this, it's very sad but it might be true.
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I've gotten results when I act like an asshole. I'll act polite in most circumstances, but sometimes it just leads to people giving me the run-around. I've seemed to get results when I escalate the situation. One time I ordered a custom laptop from HP. It was being delivered by FedEx. I got the tracking number and followed it every step of the way. I took the day off of work on the expected delivery day. It never arrived. I waited a second day then looked up tracking. FedEx said that they tried to deliver, but I didn't answer the door. I stood by the door all day so that is BS. Then they said someone picked it up with a different name. I called and told them I never received it. I was being polite and patient as they said they would look into it. I called every couple of days to find out what the status was. I'd get the same response that they were looking into it. Eventually I started to get angry over the phone, and suddenly they found it because someone had returned the laptop to them at the moment. It could be true, but seems to convenient to be a coincidence. This situation happened two more times with different items. I now know to never have anything delivered via FedEx, but it was being an asshole to them that got me results.

TLDR; FedEx tried to screw me over. I tried being polite, but that didn't achieve any results. I acted like an asshole, and I got the desired outcome.
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Smallville posted...

ernieforss posted...

i worked in retail for a long time. i will say people who get upset will get better results than people who are ok and walk away. if they walk away there is no chance they will get what they want. If they get upset... there might be a higher chance that a manager will fold.

You know "give them the pickle" thing.

i kinda agree with this, it's very sad but it might be true.

It really depends if you have a justifiable reason to be angry. I don't consider getting angry at poor handling of business as "being an asshole"... I mean if you're going to start swearing and continually misunderstand clearly written policies, then you're likely not going to get anywhere. And the further up you go, the more you'll likely get shut down. People don't get promoted for standing down to shitty behavior.