The holidays can feel like a test of your mastery of the seasonal¹ arts of shopping and -- unfortunately -- complaining.

假日感觉就像是对你的节日购物技巧以及──不幸的是──投诉技巧掌握程度的检验。

It's crunch² time for gift buyers, the week when stores and websites see a surge in sales, and with it comes more potential for problems and frustrations³. The multitude of ways to do holiday shopping -- in stores, online, from a smartphone -- poses new challenges for shoppers and stores. Whether it's faulty merchandise, the wrong price or shipping⁴ that is too slow, time-starved customers want a resolution and they want it fast.

对选购礼品者而言，这是一个紧要时期。在这前后的一周时间中，各大商场和购物网站的销售量迅速上升，出现问题及令人失望事件的可能性也随之升高。进行节日购物的众多方式──逛实体店、网络购物及通过智能手机购物──给消费者和商家带来了新挑战。无论是买到次品、价格弄错还是送货太慢的问题，时间宝贵的消费者都希望问题得到解决，而且是迅速解决。

Luxury and mid-price department stores increasingly see customer service as their main attraction and the best way to draw in shoppers from discount stores and online sellers. 'We spend a lot of time, money and energy attracting new customers, ' says Richard Baker⁵, chief executive of Hudson's Bay Co., owner of Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor. 'The last thing we want to do is, after all that work, lose a customer over a bad experience.'

豪华百货商场及中档商场逐渐将客户服务作为他们的主要吸引力，以及将顾客从折扣店和网店吸引过来的最佳方法。Hudson's Bay公司首席执行长理查德·贝克(Richard Baker)说：“我们投入了大量时间、资金和精力来吸引新顾客，我们最不希望做的事情是，在做了那么多工作后，因为一次糟糕的购物经历而丢掉了顾客。” Hudson's Bay为萨克斯第五大道百货(Saks Fifth Avenue)及Lord &Taylor的母公司。

That is why Andrea Robins⁶ spent several hours on a recent weekday hunting for a handbag. Ms. Robins is Saks's senior director of customer service, who solves problems that escalate⁷ from any of the retailer⁸'s 113 full-price stores and outlets¹⁰. A customer at a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Florida had bought a $1, 850 Gucci bag to be shipped to her daughter in Washington state. The store mistakenly sent it via ground, not air, and the bag wasn't going to make it in time for the daughter's birthday.

这也是安德列娅·罗宾斯(Andrea Robins)在最近一个工作日花了数小时搜寻一只手袋的原因所在。罗宾斯是萨克斯百货的客户服务高级总监，负责解决该零售商的113家正价商店及折扣卖场涌现出的问题。一名顾客在萨克斯百货佛罗里达店购买了一只价值1,850美元的古驰(Gucci)手袋送给住在华盛顿州的女儿。该店误将手袋通过陆地运输而非空运方式寄出，这样一来手袋将不能在顾客女儿的生日当天及时送达。

'It's not acceptable to say, 'We're human and a mistake was made, '' Ms. Robins says. 'The commitment to service says, 'Now what are we going to do to fix it?''

罗宾斯说：“对顾客说‘我们也是人，所以我们出错了’是不可接受的，根据服务承诺，‘现在我们要做些什么来解决它’？”

Ms. Robins and her team first tried to reroute the package to a faster shipping method -- but that wouldn't be fast enough. They considered placing a new order for the handbag with quicker shipping, but it was out of stock. Finally, they called up a Gucci store in Seattle, bought the bag from the retailer and had it sent to the daughter -- just in time.

罗宾斯及其团队首先尝试了将包裹改成更快的运送方式──但是那也不够快。她们又考虑下一个运送方式更快的新订单，但是手袋已无存货。最后，她们打电话给西雅图的一家古驰专卖店，从这家店买了一只手袋送到顾客女儿的手上──刚好及时送达。

A survey of 1, 003 people conducted this fall at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business found consumer dissatisfaction with retailers¹¹ is on the rise. Half the people surveyed had a problem with a product or service in the past 12 months, up from 45% in 2011, the last time the study was conducted. And the public is frustrated¹², with 68% of respondents saying a problem made them 'very' or 'extremely' upset, up from just 60% in 2011.

亚利桑那州立大学W.·P.·凯里商学院(Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business)在2013年秋季对1,003名消费者进行了调查，发现消费者对零售商的不满有所增加。有半数受访者在过去12个月中遇到过产品或服务问题，高于2011年即上一次调查展开时45%的比例。消费者的心情也非常沮丧，有68%的受访者表示出现的问题让他们“非常”或“极其”不高兴，高于2011年刚到60%的比例。

'There were two things that increased the most -- yelling and cursing, ' says Scott Broetzmann, chief executive of Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, the survey's principal designer.

该调查的主要设计方Customer Care Measurement &Consulting的首席执行长斯科特·布勒茨曼(Scott Broetzmann)说：“有两样东西增加的最多──叫喊和咒骂。”

Several executives at both Lord & Taylor and Saks said they always want to know about a problem, rather than have an upset customer leave the store in a huff. At the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship New York City store, a tourist destination that sees close to a million shoppers between Thanksgiving and Christmas, every receipt has the email address of John Cruz, the store's general manager, printed at the bottom.

Lord &Taylor及萨克斯百货的几名高管称，他们一直都想了解问题，不想让顾客怒气冲冲地离开商场。萨克斯百货的纽约旗舰店算得上一个旅游目的地，在每年的感恩节及 诞节期间会迎来近百万顾客，它的每张购物小票的底部都印着该商场总经理约翰·克鲁兹(John Cruz)的电子邮件地址。

he Internet is a popular place for shoppers to vent¹³. The survey found 35% of people with a problem posted about it on a social-networking site, up from 19% in 2011. It's a way to 'voice your dissatisfaction with the world, ' says Mary Jo Bitner, executive director of the ASU business school's Center for Services Leadership.

网络是消费者发泄不满的热门之地。调查发现遇到问题的消费者中有35%的人在社交网站上把它说出来，高于2011年的19%。亚利桑那州立大学商学院服务领导力中心(Center for Services Leadership)的常务主任玛丽·乔·比特纳(Mary Jo Bitner)说，它是一种“表达对世界的不满”的方式。

Stores often evaluate and take the conversation offline to resolve it. Earlier this month, a customer of Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus Group's high-end New York department store, lost a stud on a pair of Prada ankle boots and tweeted, 'SO UPSETTING! What Can I Do?帝' Bergdorf's Twitter account, @Bergdorfs, responded with a name and phone number to call.

商场常常会评估问题并转到线下商谈来解决问题。12月初，由于自己的一双普拉达(Prada)踝靴掉了一粒饰扣，Neiman Marcus集团旗下纽约高端百货店Bergdorf Goodman的一名顾客在Twitter上发了一条消息，“真让人无奈！我该怎么办？？”Bergdorf的Twitter账户@Bergdorfs为此留下了联系人的姓名及电话。

Most retail⁹ problems are still resolved over the phone. Hudson's Bay Co. typically gets about 50, 000 inquiries¹⁴ a month at its Wilkes-Barre, Pa., facility, which handles calls for Lord & Taylor and the Canadian Hudson's Bay chain. That number triples in December, says Lisa Fuller, the call center's director.

不过，大多数的零售问题还是通过电话解决的。Hudson's Bay位于宾夕法尼亚威尔克斯-巴里(Wilkes-Barre)的客服中心负责处理Lord &Taylor及Hudson's Bay在加拿大的连锁商场的问询电话，通常每个月会接到50,000个电话。该中心的总监莉萨·富勒(Lisa Fuller)称，这个数字在12月份会增加两倍。

New employees, including 140 seasonal hires go through a two-week training program focused on diffusing¹⁵ anger and empathy. 'My grandmother used to say, 'It takes two people to argue, '' Ms. Fuller tells employees.

该客服中心的新职员，包括140名季节性临时员工会接受为期两周的培训，培训内容以化解顾客的怒气及培养同理心为主。富勒对员工们说：“我的祖母过去常常告诉我，‘一个巴掌拍不响。’”

Last month, a man called about his effort to buy a hat on Lord & Taylor's website. Each time he tried, the system cancelled the transaction. (Lord & Taylor and Saks shared customer complaints with The Wall Street Journal with the agreement that no customer information would be disclosed.)

在11月份，一名男子打来电话投诉他在Lord &Taylor网站上买帽子时遇到的麻烦。每次他尝试下单时，系统就会取消交易。（Lord &Taylor及萨克斯百货与《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)协定可公开顾客的投诉，但不会透露顾客的个人信息。）

'I'm not getting off this phone, I'm telling you right now, until we get this settled, ' he said, audibly agitated¹⁶.

该名顾客说：“我现在就告诉你，我不会挂掉电话，直到我们解决问题为止。”从他的声音可以听出他非常恼火。

'I'm trying, sir -- ' the employee said calmly. The man interrupted: 'It should not take me from 10 o'clock until 6 in the evening to order a hat online.' 'I agree, sir, ' the employee said.

接电话的员工平静地说：“先生，我尽量…”。顾客打断她说道：“在网上订顶帽子，不应该让我从10点钟订到晚上六点吧。” 该员工答道：“是这样的，先生。”

Eventually, the employee discovered his order was being cancelled automatically as a security measure, because he had put in an incorrect billing address. The man never realized he was at fault, nor should he, Ms. Fuller says. 'The customer is always right, no matter what -- even if they're wrong, they're right.'

最终，该员工发现顾客的订单是因为安全原因被自动取消的，他输入了错误的账单地址。富勒说，该顾客从没意识到是他自己错了，他也不用意识到，“顾客永远是对的，无论是什么事情──就算他们有错，他们也是对的。”

Call-center employees handle on average about 40 calls a day. Each inquiry¹⁷ is logged so the employee can see shoppers' purchase histories and whether they have had problems in the past. The company also looks for trends, such as a jump in what it calls WISMO calls (short for 'Where Is My Order?'), to help identify larger, systemic problems.

客服中心的员工每天平均要处理约40个电话。每项问询都有记录以便员工能看到顾客以往的购物经历以及他们以前是否也遇到过麻烦。该公司还会通过观察所问询问题的趋势来确认更大的、系统性的问题，比如有关被其称为“WISMO”（我的订单到哪了？）电话的数量的上升。

New types of problems arise as the industry adopts the 'omnichannel' operating model, in which online orders may be fulfilled not only from a distribution center but also possibly from a local store that has the item in stock. This can lead to surprises. A customer ordering online usually expects to receive pristine¹⁸ merchandise that hasn't been handled.

由于零售业采纳了“全渠道”的运营模式，所以新型问题会随之出现。在该模式中，网络订单可能不只是由发货中心完成，也可能由当地有货的商店完成，这会造成一些意外。在线订购的顾客往往期待收到的是未经交易过的全新商品。

Saks ran into this assumption over the summer, when a customer ordered a dress to wear to her daughter's wedding. Her complaint, lodged¹⁹ in an email to Saks's then-CEO, was that the dress arrived 'smelly' and 'used.' The dress had been plucked off the selling floor and shipped from a nearby store, meaning other customers may have tried it on or it had been purchased and returned. Ms. Robins made sure a replacement²⁰ was sent.

萨克斯在今年夏季就遭遇了由此引发的问题，当时一名顾客订了一件裙子准备穿着去参加女儿的婚礼。后来她写了一封电子邮件向萨克斯百货当时的首席执行长投诉，她在信中说，裙子送到时“有味道”而且是“穿过的”。那件裙子是从销售场地拿来然后从附近一家商店发货的，这表示其他顾客可能试穿过，或者它曾经被卖出又被退货了。后来罗宾斯给该顾客寄了一件新品。

When a customer makes a difficult request for something far outside the store's policy, Ms. Robins is careful not to say no outright²¹, but rather to look for an alternative. 'On some level, it's parenting, ' she says. 'If I can't say yes to this request, what can I say yes to that may be satisfying?'

当有顾客提出远远超出该商场政策范围的棘手要求时，罗宾斯总是小心对待，不会直接拒绝，而是去寻找一个替代方法。她说：“在某种层面上，这就像做家长一样。如果我不能答应这个要求，那么有什么可能让人满意的事情是我能答应的？”

A customer trying to buy a watch for his wife recently complained about a store associate giving him misinformation about a discount available online. Ms. Robins didn't honor the misquoted discount, but she did offer the shopper a gift card toward a future purchase.

一名想给妻子买块手表的顾客最近投诉说，销售员向他提供了错误的网上折扣信息。尽管罗宾斯并不认同这个折扣有误的问题，她还是送给该顾客一张礼品卡供下次购物使用。

As a general rule, Ms. Robins and her team research complaints to make sure they are plausible²² but don't argue with a customer about details. 'Perception is reality, ' she said.

一般说来，罗宾斯与其团队会调查顾客的投诉以确定它们是否合理，但绝不会与顾客争论细节。“感受到的就是事实，”她如此说道。