Jenny discovers how to ditch the wishy-washy words that make "no" sound worse.
Saying no to customers is one of the hardest things in customer service. Many struggle with it and try to soften the blow by adding wishy-washy words. However, when they do this, they add a double negative and give the impression that they lack confidence.
"Regrettably, we can't do that," Jenny said
The customer gave her a sour look and turned away. Jenny felt terrible.
She dreaded saying no to customers, and using the word "regrettably" (which was a bit of a habit) made her feel even worse.
She wished there was a way to say no without sounding so negative.
Then she attended How to Control your Elephant, where she learned that "regrettably" is not only a very negative word but can also be interpreted by the customer that you don’t believe in your company’s policies.
“Regrettably, we don’t offer that service” can be interpreted as you saying: “If I ran this company, we would… I don’t make the rules … so don’t you go blaming me!”
"Unfortunately, we don’t”, “I'm afraid we don’t", or just “I’m sorry we don’t” can also give the same impression.
Hence, we call them the wishy-washy words of customer service.
During How to Control your Elephant, Jenny discovered the 3-Step Process to say “No”.
The first step is to be clear and assertive with the "no" without using the wishy-washy stuff.
The second step is to explain why you can't give the customer what they want and…
The third step is to end with something positive you can do, even if it's just giving advice.
Jenny tried it out the next time she had to say no and noticed how much more confident she felt and how much better the customer took the obvious disappointment that he wouldn't get exactly what he wanted.
Stop being wishy-washy and learn to say “no” with confidence because the customer is NOT ALWAYS RIGHT!
