As a motivational speaker, one of my biggest messages to my audiences is to boldly step up and ask for what you want. And probably because I talk about it so often, I actually remember to do it most of the time. This morning was one of those times – and it had a big payoff.
I made a mistake on an online reservation I made on American Airlines about 36 hours ago. I fly a lot with Delta and have some sort of special status with them, but I don’t fly much with AA. When I contact them they are like, “Linda who?” So when I called just now to ask if I could change my reservation without any penalty, the response was, “No not now. If you had called within 24 hours you could have, but not now. Now it will cost you $150.”
Okay here was my strategy. It was Two Pronged:
- I was nice to her. Really sincerely nice to her. I fell on my sword, took 100% responsibility for the error and asked for her help to waive the fee. When she said she couldn’t do it, I moved to Prong Two.
- I asked her if there was another person I could appeal to for help to get this waived. She transferred me to another department. At this point I repeated Prong One. Nice, really nice, appreciative, respectful and nice. That person said she couldn’t do it but would transfer me to another department. And the representative in THAT department – actually made it happen. Bam! I put $150 back into my pocket.
Here’s the thing. When the very first representative said, “You waited too long and unfortunately there is no way to waive that fee,” every instinct in my body said that it was hopeless and I should give up. But I didn’t. I just took a deep breath and asked again. AND – I stayed pleasant and apologetic the whole time.
Doesn’t this make you wonder how many times you may have given up too soon when someone told you “no?” It surely does me. So I say – let’s just ask!
From your very happy motivational speaker Linda Larsen, $150 richer
