Respond to Rachael and Taylor with at least one fully developed paragraph. What is your reaction to their moment of persuasion? Would you have done the same thing, or would you have approached the situation differently? Why or why not? Remember, your approach can be completely different from your peer’s approach, as you can bring your own unique perspectives and life experiences to the situation.
Rachael post
I spent the bulk of my life working in a customer service setting and I can think of numerous times where I have had to go head to head with either my boss or one of my employees. One time that comes to mind is while I worked managing a Family Dollar store. The Christmas season had just wrapped and we were moving all unsold merchandise to a clearance area. I moved mine to the final location against a wall rather than the main aisle which the district manager and I butted heads on. He wanted it in the main flow of traffic where as I wanted to be able to put out my next seasons merchandise knowing that my stockroom was already full and the Christmas stuff would have to be moved again in a week and a half anyway. After going back and forth we compromised giving one four foot section to Christmas clearance with a sign indicating where more was located.
I was frustrated by the fact that in my small store the district manager was insisting on us moving merchandise multiple times when it could easily be seen almost anywhere you stood. It created more work for me as well as my staff and because we were short handed at the time it just seemed illogical to move something only to move it again the following week. Doing it once was more efficient, but I accepted the compromise knowing it was probably best.
Taylor post
A moment of persuasion that I can recall is when I tried to convince my dad to enroll in automatic payments for his bills. My dad is very unorganized and has a hard time managing his payment due dates for bills. I am consistently trying to convince him to set up automatic payments for his bills, as this will limit the amount of manual tracking for him to do. He gets very aggravated and stressed when he has payments that come past due, and more times than not this tardiness incurs late fees. He knows that automatic payments would help reduce the stress of tracking payments and the late fees incurred, but his urgency of wanting control of his payments being made dominates his decision making. I showed him that sometimes there are more benefits that companies offer when you can sign up for automatic payments such as discounts on your monthly rate, but this has yet to alter his mind set.
My moment of persuasion was unsuccessful, as I havent been able to break my dad out of his comfort zone. I used several methods of persuasion one of which was showing him the benefits of automatic payments, and the stress that is relieved by doing so. I have also tried showing him methods that can be used to track automatic bill pay, such as writing the automatic payment dates on a calendar. I know he likes to be in control of submitting his payments and knowing the balance that is needed in his account to pay the bills, however he is unable to track the bill due dates successfully, which leads to further stress and aggravation. Although I was unable to successfully persuade him in this moment, I am hopeful that the evolvement of technology will provide a level comfort to users who are uneasy with the processing of automatic payments currently.
