SD Newsletter Fall 2011 final.indd - USPTA divisions - United States ...

16
The 3 Step Reaction Plan in dealing with Customer
Confl ict
Whether we are the coach of a high school team,
the desk person at a pro shop or the pro at a country
club we all deal with nasty confl ict with our
customers at one time or another. Rather than run
for cover or lash out at our adversaries we need to
accept the fact that confl ict will always be a part
of our job and that we can effectively deal with
it by executing a three step plan of reaction by:
remaining calm, offering empathy and making a
concession.
Take the following example. A member of the
country club I am the Director of Racquets at
showed up one evening under the impression he
had successfully made an online court reservation
for his doubles game. After one of my staff made
him aware of the fact his group did not have a
court he became visibly angry and demanded to
speak to me.
The fi rst thing I did was ask him to join me in
private to ensure we did not create a scene in
front of other members. Once we were in private,
I allowed him to express his emotions while not
offering any response, in spite of the fact I could
feel my blood pressure rising (Step #1 – Remaining
Calm). Once he fi nished his ranting, I offered
him a summary of what I heard him say and how I
believe it made him feel. I told him that the message
that came through to me was that he was extremely
frustrated because he believe he properly
made an online court reservation for him and his
friends who were all looking forward to playing
and now could not. I told him I couldn’t blame
him for being frustrated about this and that I would
feel the same way (Step #2 – Offer Empathy). I
had serious doubt that he properly made an online
court reservation as we had never experienced any
glitches in our system from any other customer in
seven years. Nevertheless, I told him that I would
contact the system programmer to ask them about
this potential glitch in our system and then get back
to him with any discoveries (Step #3 – Make a
by Mark Centrella, USPTA
Concession). On top of that, I invited him and his tennis
group to stay and participate in a clinic one of my staff
was running that evening. The following morning, before
I even had a chance to contact the system programmer,
the member who was angry with me the night before
called me. The thing was he wasn’t angry anymore. He
was actually apologetic and admitted that he wasn’t very
computer savvy and the error in his reservation attempt
was more likely committed by him. He told me not to
bother contacting the system programmer and thanked me
for my willingness to look into it.
By following the standard three step plan of reaction, you
will fi nd that you will be able to turn an incident that could
have created an enemy into one that brought someone
closer to you.