[MUSIC] We started this lesson talking about the two minute challenge billing error. How did the skills that we talked about in this lesson apply to this two minute challenge? They are obviously important for helping you to address dealing with the company. Can you get their attention? Can you make it an integrated negotiation, so that you can get the error fixed and get better service without anyone losing face and actually end up with a better relationship? What it doesn't do in terms of your communication skills if that doesn't work. If they're just so inept and you're going to close out your account with them and move on to someone else. Your communication skills don't answer what do you do with the value's question that's at root about who are you and what do you stand for. Someone once made a significant error, their fault, you called it to their attention, they haven't fixed it. They've made a significant error in your favor for a lot of money. What do you do with that? >> Well, in that case, you have to call. You have to let people know that you're not being charged the right amount and again, is some of this context driven? Yeah, I think it is. It's almost like the last question if it was $0.15, then maybe you let it go. Or if it's $50,000, then you have an obligation as a person's businessman to, I think to make it a call. We all exercise judgement everyday and we have to choose between right and wrong. And sometimes you have to pick a line and you have to use your judgement and your own values to determine where that line is. >> One situation I encountered some time ago was a relationship with a long distance company. Most people are familiar with buying long distance for your telephone. I buy long distance service around the globe for my telecommunications business and I work with a number of suppliers. And I was working with a new group that was adequate, but not great in terms of their customer service and support. And when I got the bill from them, I discovered that they were consistently undercharging me versus the rates that we had originally negotiated. And on the one hand, I was happy to get what I considered to be an unintentional discount on the service. But I knew that the bill was not correct and so I was contemplating how to deal with that. In thinking about how to resolve this billing problem, I tried to come up with a number of different possible solutions. One was to say nothing. And I felt that if they could get their act together and catch it down the road and correct it, that was up to them. But in the mean time, I'd take the discount and perhaps use it as compensation for their lack of good service. I thought as a compromise, I could wait a month or two and then bring it to their attention. So I'd capture my discount, but then we'd get it corrected going forward. I thought about speaking up right now and letting him know that I discovered the problem. And see if we could get the relationship on a better track by being open and transparent. And then of course, I thought about just switching to another provider if these people were in fact not providing great service and made mistakes on their bills. It told me that they didn't really have the philosophy that I needed for my business. And as I reflected on these alternatives, became clear to me that only the last two were really acceptable. I either needed to contact them right away and see if we can get this fixed. Or if I'd already figured out that they really weren't in line with my business philosophy. And they didn't have the level of competence or expertise or attention to detail that I needed, then we should just cut them loose and I should go elsewhere. And, in fact, it was that last that I decided to pursue. When I let the firm know anybody is unhappy to lose business, I think. But I, again am transparent, I gave them the explanation and wished them luck [LAUGH] in moving forward with others and maybe they learned something from the experience. I didn't hear from them again. >> This is the place that it goes back to who you are and what you stand for. What are your values? Are you aware of the career tragedies? Do you know what kind of traps you might sink into and what that does to how you think about yourself. And how you deal with others and incrementalism and all of the tragedies that we talked about? At the end of the day, if you cannot solve this problem through effective communication, you have some choices to make. Do you want to keep working with people who are so inept they can't get their billing accurate at this level of magnitude? Do you keep the $50,000, do you return it? For me, I return it. What do you do? [MUSIC] [SOUND]
