Clearly State The Way You Think The Other Person Feels

Sometimes, the other person comes to you with a problem he thinks you should be able to solve, but you cannot solve it! It is beyond your control.

This kind of situation happens frequently in retail and other public service situations when the customer has a complaint and you are the one he comes to for satisfaction, but for some reason you simply cannot give him what he wants.

Here's what to do: Clearly state the way you think he feels. Try to express his exact thoughts as well as you can. Then, after he has agreed with you that this is what he feels, go on to explain why it is that you cannot give him what he wants, yourself. Then recommend what he might be able to do to obtain more help from some other source, or what you yourself can do that might be *some* help.

EXAMPLE

"I know you must feel frustrated about this. Here you are paying all this money to rent a taxicab, and you can't even get us to fix the pleasure radio so you can get AM as well as FM stations."

Then he agrees that, yes, that's exactly how he feels. YOU MAY NOT BE GIVING HIM WHAT HE WANTS, BUT AT LEAST YOU UNDERSTAND HIS POINT OF VIEW. That's better than not giving him anything at all! Then you go on to explain, "But there is nothing I can do! Management considers a pleasure radio to be optional, not required. Some drivers don't even *want* a pleasure radio. They consider it a distraction. It gets in the way of their *taxicab* radio. So I'm not allowed to fix your radio, even if I knew how to do it, which I don't. But what you *can* do, if you really *must* have AM and FM both, is switch cars. We have several available which have the radio you want. They might have some other problems your car doesn't have, but the choice is up to you."

bmcgin@patriot.net.

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       Rev. Bill McGinnis, Director - LoveAllPeople.org

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