“You can take that invoice and you shove it where…,”. After being very specific about the final resting place for the invoice, small business owner Oscar Reese added a comment that questioned the legality of the collector’s parents.
The telephone call between Oscar and the accounts receivable rep, Kevin Hobbs, did not start well and and went downhill in a hurry.
“Mulligan”, Kevin said, almost in a whisper.
“What did you say to me?”
“I said mulligan, Mr. Reese. “Have you played golf, do you know what a mulligan is?”
“Yeah, yeah. I know what it means. What’s your point!.”
Did the mulligan approach work with Oscar Reese? Yes, it did. Does it work all the time? No. But nothing else does either. That is why you don’t want to be a one-trick pony when dealing with an irate customer. You want to have as many arrows in your quiver as possible.
The mulligan is one of ten techniques suggested in our seminars that include handling the irate customer. To find out more, please visit: www.trpaulsen.com
Note: If you are not a golfer, you may not be familiar with the phrase.
A mulligan is a second chance to perform an action, usually after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder. Its best-known meaning is in golf, whereby a player is informally allowed to replay a stroke, even though this is against the formal rules of golf.
‘Sometimes life gives you a second chance, or even two! Not always, but sometimes. It’s what you do with those second chances that counts.”
…Dave Wilson
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