大家购物遇到烦心事该如何解决

The holidays can feel like a test of your mastery of the seasonal arts of shopping and -- unfortunately -- complaining.
节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 crunch time for gift buyers, the week when stores and websites see a surge in sales, and with it comes more potential for problems and frustrations. 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 shipping 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 Baker, 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 Robins 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 escalate from any of the retailer's 113 full-price stores and outlets. 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 retailers 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 frustrated, 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。

The Internet is a popular place for shoppers to vent. 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 retail problems are still resolved over the phone. Hudson's Bay Co. typically gets about 50,000 inquiries 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 diffusing 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。’”