Don’t Accept “NO”
When a person tells you no, it means THEY don’t have the answer. look beyond them, focus on your goal, go around them and GET the answer somewhere else. There’s no such thing as a closed-door to those of us with imagination.
Prime example: I needed a receipt for a purchase made six months ago. I called and was rushed off the phone after being told, “We don’t keep receipts going that far back.” End of conversation — the phone mysteriously went dead. This was unacceptable. The word “unacceptable” is what I want readers to grasp. The story doesn’t matter much. When you need something, you can not accept a no from another human. They do not have the authority to halt your goals and or dreams. This insignificant story about the receipt just explains it: I went to the local store and stood in the “customer service” line. The first thing I noticed was the young lady at the counter was barely past her teen years, and she was performing mundane tasks for customers in front of me — simply ringing them up and cashing them out. Now, I will admit I made an appraisal concerning her abilities — not a strike against her, but I started thinking ahead because I anticipated she would not be able to provide the receipt.
She tried to generate the receipt, could not, so she called another young man to her aid. He repeated, “We don’t keep receipts that long.”
I said, “Yes, you do. If you are in business, you do not delete receipts after six months. You haven’t even filed taxes for this year. I get that you don’t know how to access it. I am asking for the real customer service team members who can. Perhaps it is not at this store…”
He called his manager on his little radio to ask about it. The store manager (whom I never saw) responded over the wire to give me the customer service phone number that was taped to the cash register, clearly visible for everyone. I called it and had to dance for a while because it wasn’t actually the customer service number, it was their credit card help number. Finally, I got a human to come to the phone by pressing a bunch of buttons or zeroes (lol) and was given the correct number.
The customer service rep…that is another long story, but suffice it to say the nice worker took all of my information, and then advised me my request would be forwarded to their escalation department, and it should be handled in no more than two weeks (If I had the app, I could keep up with my receipts online). I digress.
What IS significant about this story is the matter-of-fact manner in which people who do not have the answer are quick to dish out the N-O word. There is a psychological reason behind this: Many people do not like to admit they don’t know an answer because of their egos. Therefore, they give erroneous information.
