Turning Confrontation into Collaboration

Years ago, I was dining at a restaurant with a friend of mine. The restaurant was about a mile away from where I lived at the time and I went there often. My order was fairly predictable. One of the features on the menu was a king crab add-on for $7.99 and this add-on always accompanied my entrée. King crab is my favorite! When we received the bill, the amount was significantly higher than what I expected. Looking through the bill, I noticed the charge for the crab was $23.99 instead of the normal $7.99. The next time our waiter came by, I asked him about the charge. Little did I know, but the menu recently changed and the add-on wasn’t offered anymore. Instead, I was charged the full entrée price of the crab. Here’s how the rest of the conversation went:

Me: Oh wow! I come here quite a bit so I didn’t notice the menu change since I usually order the same thing every time.

Waiter: Yeah, we just changed it last week.

Me: I see. I don’t mind paying extra for the crab of course, but I wouldn’t have ordered it had I known the add-on price wasn’t offered anymore. Is there something we can work out?

Waiter: I’ll go talk to my manager.

When the waiter came back, he informed me they were not only knocking down the price of the crab, but they were taking it off the bill entirely!

So what are the takeaways of this story? I took what could have been a confrontational situation (dissatisfied customer vs. waiter) and turned it into a collaborative situation.

Being in the restaurant industry is tricky business. Retail is in the same boat. There’s LOTS of competition and people can easily not go to one establishment and patronize the other across the street. On top of that, owners and managers know the familiar saying, “If a customer is happy, they might tell one person. If they’re unhappy, they’ll tell seven people.” This doesn’t necessarily mean, however, they’ll accommodate every dissatisfied customer’s whim just to keep them happy.

So why was the manager so accommodating to me? Here’s my take:

1.     I mentioned to the waiter that I went to that restaurant regularly. Restaurants love repeat customers and like to retain them.

2.     I made it very clear that I wasn’t trying to get anything for free.

3.     I avoided using the word “you” so it wouldn’t appear like a personal attack on the waiter.

4.     I asked if there was something WE could work out.

The last item is where the confrontation (albeit, a minor one) turns into collaboration. I am now including the waiter into finding a solution. I made no demands. I left it open-ended. Now the waiter feels he has options and hasn’t been backed into a corner.

When people feel like they have a choice, they are more likely to have a positive attitude toward whatever the issue may be. This is true not only in the waiter’s case in this example, but in any situation.

So the next time you’re in a situation where a confrontation, big or small, might arise, remember to minimize the word “you” and accentuate the word “we”. Leave options open. Inclusion breeds collaboration and cooperation. It might even get you some free crab legs!