PON – Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School - https://www.pon.harvard.edu
Business and Commercial Role-Play:
Software Return
$0.00 – $6.00
Bruce Patton
Two-party negotiation between a customer and a returns clerk about the return of a defective software package
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SCENARIO:
The complaints clerk in a retail software store sees a customer approaching, carrying a software package (without the box) that the store sold at a special price last week. The software cannot be returned to the manufacturer under these circumstances. The clerk has already exceeded their weekly returns budget. The customer has been unable to get the package to work.
MAJOR LESSONS:
The scenario makes it very easy to slip into an unprofitable negative mode of negotiation, based almost entirely on reaction. Unsatisfactory outcomes almost always result.
Those parties willing to consider the perceptions and interests of the other party as relevant can usually engage in mutually beneficial joint problem-solving.
The persuasive effects of threats, cajoling, anger, helplessness, looking pathetic, and other techniques can be explored.
Prof. Susskind’s Top 5 Environmental Negotiation Teaching Materials
From time to time, the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center asks PON-affiliated faculty to nominate their top five books, top five teaching videos or top five role-play simulations in certain fields or teaching settings. These change periodically.