Mostly, Everything is Negotiable (Part 3)

Incident 3:

A friend and I were trying to sign up a gym membership. We were trying to redeem the coupon of a "one-week" free membership. Since we were going to join the gym anyway, we were trying to get a 5 weeks membership for a 4 weeks price. By checking the computer record, the manager found out that my friend was not a new member (she used to join that gym 3 years ago for a few months), and he started to tell us he couldn't give her that 1 free week pass. I was getting annoyed by it. Come on, it's only 1 insignificant free week pass. Though my friend was not a new member, she could be considered as a return member. From the gym perspective, it's better to see a customer to return now, than not returning at all right?

So I try to convince the manager with the reason I mentioned above with the or else option ---or else we would be considering joining another gym if he doesn't give us the free week pass. I'm sure the manager know that the other gym I mentioned was a strong competitor in the area. So he agreed to give us not only 1 week, but 3 weeks free. We were happy with what we got again.

The point taken from these three incidents were that don't feel embarrassed to ask for a lower price or more features. If I don't like what they offer, I would at least tell them what I want and see if we can achieve a common ground to make both parties happy.

Mostly, Everything is Negotiable (Part 2)

Incident 2:

I was on the phone with a customer service representative of a cellphone service provider because of the change of ownership issue of my cellphone number. The girl on the phone told me that I had to stick with the company for another year in order to maintain the "promotion" I've been using--which is just a standard plan with 1000 minutes, plus unlimited nights and weekends. I told her I don't want another contract. She said if I don't have a 12 month contract, I won't receive the free nights minutes. Then I said, "I don't want a contract, and I want the deal I'm having now. Is this the best you can do?" So she asked me to hang on for a minute when she went to talk to her manager. When she came back, she and her manager agreed to give me the same plan I've been using for the same price without any contract.

I was happy with what I got. And what's most important is that I gave a try on those negotiating tips that I read from books sometime ago.

Mostly, Everything is Negotiable (Part 1)

Incident 1:

I was in a garage on Saturday to get an oil change for my car. I left my car in the garage and then went to the gym since the waiting time for the oil change was about an hour. When I came back, the manager said they found out the light bulb next to the license plate was broken and it needed to be fixed. And then he said it cost 11 dollars to replace it.

So I started my unconscious negotiating process (First of all, I didn't know there's a light bulb exist in that part of my car. And secondly, I thought he was talking about the nuts and bolts for the license plate), I started to ask them why it costs so much to replace it. I commented it only cost less than a few dollars if I do it myself. (Actually I am quite clueless about the mechanics of a car.)

Then the manager said, "OK, we can replace it for 9 dollars." Hm, just because I started asking for a lower price, I received a 18% discount, that's pretty good. Though I could counter-offer them 5 dollars and see what he would say, I didn't do it because I was surprised that the price could be lowered. (But definitely I'll make an counter-offer for my next negotiating event though.) I didn't do the research on the market price of changing a license plate light bulb on a car, but I thought it probably takes too much time for me to research on it, or even go to an auto shop to get the light bulb and do it myself. In the end, I paid 9 dollars to fix the problem.