The Awkward Silence

So, if any of you had to write an e-mail to your team lead on the client side, because your team lead on the company side wants to 'get to know them', but in a purely 'you're possible business later' kind of way, what would you write that's a.) honest and not lying by admission but b.) still professional?

Because 'Hey, my manager wants to usurp some of your already precious time so he can add you to a list of possible people to sell more stuff to' just doesn't sound right :|

Sarov

Hmm. (I assume you meant omission) so you require including the reason behind the meeting?

CaldeiraG

I know that people are resistant to change and all but the new font on SE is harder to read :/

Tinkeringbell

@Sarov Yeah, omission. Dumb.

Sarov

@CaldeiraG Courier New for all!!

Tinkeringbell

I think I will need to include a.) some reason, just so I can honestly tell my manager I tried and b.) be honest about it, just so I don't raise false expectations on the client side.

Because if I were just to write 'Hey, manager wants to get to know you' I probably haven't tried hard enough once that gets ignored.

Sarov

1:28 PM

Okie lessee. So it basically becomes a phrasing issue at this point, so a perceptive reader will see through the BS, but how about something like...
"Good day. My manager wanted me to reach out to you to see if you wanted to meet with [him/her] to touch base and see if any future, mutually beneficial business opportunities would be possible. Would you be interested in meeting [him/her]?"

Tinkeringbell

It's a nice one, I think.

Except for the fact that I'm not sure if I'm supposed to mention future mutally beneficial business opportunities.

I'm also pretty much convinced they don't have to be 'mutually beneficient' XD

Sarov

In theory, all sales are supposed to be mutually beneficial, not just to the salesperson.

Tinkeringbell

Yeah.

In practice, we asked every customer at the garden center if they needed potting soil as well, because no one ever remembered if they had any left at home so they just bought it when we suggested they might need it XD

Sarov

And I'm not sure how to reconcile 'not supposed to mention' with 'do not lie by omission'. Pretty sure those are mutually exclusive.

Tinkeringbell

Yeah... I don't want to lie by omission, but I think my manager would want me to :|

I might just go and risk mentioning it anyways then. Better that than lying.

Sarov

1:31 PM

Then you have two options:

A) Ask the manager and then lie if s/he says to
B) Tell the truth and then if questioned, mention you assumed the manager wanted to be honest.

Well, C) Ask the manager then refuse the task if asked to lie.

Tinkeringbell

Yeah definitely going with B. If he wants me to be dishonest, he's an a-hole anyways and I don't mind offending him.

Sarov

C is more direct but more confrontational. But you (presumably) do have the right to refuse unethical work.

B) is safer but risks the situation continuing if it happens again.

Personally I'd go with B the first time then C the second. But that's just me.

Tinkeringbell

Then I do B again.

Nah, it's going to be B all the way down.

Sarov

Heh.

Like turtles~

Tinkeringbell

If they want me to do C, they have to be smart enough to stop asking me XD

Sarov

1:35 PM

snorts

Well, GLHF.

Tinkeringbell

Probably will, thanks :)

Sarov

Welcome~

@Tinkeringbell Also, at least soil is a consumable so it doesn't really matter if you get too much.

Well, kinda.

Tinkeringbell

@Sarov Still, I found it a nasty marketing tactic, and I think it's one of those things that contributed to the decline of the shop eventually: Too much trying to sell people more than they needed, but having a lousy refund/return policy.

"No sir, you need at least 12 of these per square meter" > Turns out they could well do with 10 like they calculated, because the meter wasn't entirely square....

But you can't return the two left over, and get your money back.

Sarov

Aah, yeah. I remember reading an article about reducing the reasons a customer might not want to buy from you, and how having a robust return policy actually doubled sales.

Tinkeringbell

Yep. If people know they can return something, and get their money back, they might just take those two extra plants, and find a spot for them. If you always have to tell people 'no, you're not getting a refund, just store credit', especially people with less free to spend money will be very weary of taking anything home in the first place.

I've had people ask if we could somehow give them a note that says they'd get their money back, just because they didn't have that much to spend and store credit wouldn't be useful to them. We weren't allowed to, so those sales went right back to their shelves.

Sarov

1:43 PM

Ugh.

(Joking) Give them your own money, and then when the next customer comes in, pay with the previous customer's credit and pocket the money!

Journeyman Geek

@CaldeiraG Most people seem to think so

Tinkeringbell

@Sarov Ehh, I've done some very creative bookkeeping while at the register, but that wasn't one I'd do XD

Sarov

Now I'm curious what you have done.

Tinkeringbell

There were gift cards (electronic ones). One busy Saturday, the system behind those cards broke down.

So, we couldn't check what credit was on those cards, and we could connect to the system to take the credit from them.

The website where customers could check their credit was still working though.

So, everytime I got a customer that wanted to pay with such a card, the boss had me:

a.) Call a coworker to use the computer in the breakroom to check the credit on the card, and pass that on to me.

b.) Register the payment as a cash/store credit payment, depending on whether the customer wanted to pay any remainder with cash/card (I had to choose store credit if the choice was cash, because that would show up different on the receipt).

c.) Keep a manual list of card numbers and credit we took from them (just in case, I guess), together with copies of the receipts.

Sarov

@Tinkeringbell Wait so just anyone could check anyone else's credit?

Tinkeringbell

1:52 PM

d.) The next day, revert all transactions, then do them again correctly.

@Sarov Yeah. Gift cards like these have a barcode, and if you have that bit of plastic with that barcode, you can enter the numbers on a website and check.

Sarov

Oh I see.

CaldeiraG

2:12 PM

@JourneymanGeek yea, looking at the meta post

Sarov

4:59 PM

Oh holy crap the 100% zoom level is unreadable now.

Tinkeringbell

5:34 PM

Yeah, not everyone likes it XD

Sarov

I typically read at 133% zoom and it's not a huge difference.

But the 100% is unreadable now.

Extroverted Main Man

7:49 PM

0

Q: Why do people get together when they don't like each other?

I will never understand this. Over and over and over again, I keep hearing about this and that "ex wife" or "ex girlfriend" who was oh-so-horrible and they couldn't stand one more day with her and blablabla... So WHY in the hell did they get together in the first place? I ask this as somebody who...

Sarov

8:33 PM

It can be amusing sometimes to try to consider how a wildly off-topic question could be reframed to something resembling on-topic.
Like, "How do I stop my friends from dating/marrying people they dislike?"

Tinkeringbell

@Sarov Ehh, without a lot more info, that's not going to work either.

Probably falls under those 'false paradoxes' Shog wrote about way back when

"How do I meddle in someone else's relationship" is not too different from "How do I ask a female if she's pregnant".

Sarov

"Very carefully".

Extroverted Main Man

0

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