74 Decision Making Process Too Early
b'The decision making process and having a basic understanding is useful for understanding customers and employees but probably most important ourselves. In order to influence customers to buy our product or services, it\'s useful to better understand why sometimes it is so difficult to get people to change their mind. Given that it is difficult to change someone\'s mind, customer retention is that much more crucial to business success.\\n\\nThe easiest way to understand some of this is to look at politics today. Now, I don\'t really care whether you like Hillary or Trump. This is only an example and\\xa0is not taking any side. Everyone seems to agree that there are some people who support one or the other no matter what they hear, will not change their mind. The same thing can happen with the opinions of companies or\\xa0products.\\n\\nThe difference with a company is that usually the stubborn opinion is usually in the negative. That is also much worse. In the political case in this example, the timing is what is most important. Nobody has to make a decision on which lever they will press until November. However, by making a decision months ago, they are left defending it when they hear one bit of new information. That is, they are not weighing the entire database information but rather the new piece versus their\\xa0complete decision.\\n\\nSimilarly, I have\\xa0seen when somebody explains or when I show or tell somebody what an expert does. I get an interesting response. I often hear," well, this is the way I do it." Have you heard that yourself?\\n\\nDo you defend your idea what method no matter who is trying to help? Probably one of the biggest secrets to my successes is to keep an open mind as long as possible.\\n\\nOne practice surprised me immensely and greatly aided customer satisfaction, I saw used\\xa0several times. That practice or method was\\xa0allowing an angry customer to vent their anger. Afterwards it was apparent because of the process followed. Now, usually you may hear a person cut off the complaining or screaming customer in order to answer their questions. So what is missing? First, as we\'ve already mentioned, you may not yet know the entire story nor the real clause of complaint. You may have made your decision too early.\\n\\nWhat he did with the angry customer was wait until the person was finished. Anything before that might have appeared to be arguing. When the customer was finished, he was able to acknowledge the customers concerns; address the issues and in some cases remedy parts of the problem. As it was only after venting, the customer might listen.\\n\\nIn understanding the decision making process, whether it\'s someone else\'s or our own, we have a better chance of achieving success.'