Critical Thinking Scenario Sally is a 34-year-old woman who works in the customer service department for a small company that sells printers. Her job involves speaking with customers and addressing their concerns for 8 hours a day. Unfortunately for Sally, customers only reach out to her department when there is an issue with their printers.
Once, after a long day of listening to customer complaints, she felt drained and agitated . She wanted to relax, so she went to dinner with some colleagues. The colleagues began discussing an issue at work that was causing friction between departments. Sally did not agree with her colleagues’ viewpoint on the causes of that friction, but she did not want to say anything because she felt she did not know enough about the topic . For the remaining part of the discussion, Sally nodded her head and appeared to agree with her colleagues to avoid confrontation. After this dinner, she decided not spend time with these colleagues outside of work anymore .
The next day at work, Sally spoke with a customer who wanted to dispute the terms in the warranty for the product. The customer explained to Sally that he understood the terms of the warranty, but the printer was vital to his business. He explained how the ability to print materials equated to his ability to feed his family. He asked if there was any way Sally could help. Sally imagined herself in the customer’s position and decided to find additional options for the customer. In the end, Sally was able to de-escalate the situation and assist the customer .
This interaction with the customer led her to question their warranty, and she decided to speak with her manager to get it changed. She stated that the current warranty was inadequate because it did not provide customers with enough time to determine if the product would function appropriately. She provided supporting evidence to show that many printers failed only 1 month after the 1-year warranty expired. She also calculated the number of customers with failed printers that bought a replacement printer from the company she worked for . Sally proposed that the warranty be extended to 18 months. Unfortunately, her manager did not agree with her argument nor provide an argument against extending the warranty; instead, he asked, “How can you argue for a change in the warranty when you are late to work most of the time ?” Sally decided she would continue to argue for changing the warranty with the company’s leadership, and, after several meetings, Sally was able to get her proposal approved and the warranty extended.