Emotional Role in Negotiation

In this weeks blog, I'm discussing how emotions can play a role in negotiation and how to resolve disputes when emotions are highly involved. I believe the best way to describe emotional negotiation is relaying it through personal experiences. 

Referring back to my job, I work in a chain restaurant that has locations all around the world. This job comes with its pros and cons like any other job, however, one of the main cons is that you are working with peoples food and drinks. In this job you will get a lot of cases where people are displeased with the service, food or atmosphere and can get very emotionally involved in their complaints or negotiation with Management. Being a Manager, I have the role of trying to recognize these signs and try to deescalate these situations to the best of my ability. 

For example, the most common incident is a customer is displeased with the food and would like to talk to a Manager. I already know going into the negotiation that the other party is displeased and have at least a little bit of emotional discomfort where they had to ask their sever for a Manager to speak with. Once I approach the table, I try to pick out several factors dealing with emotions and see how I can resolve them. 

List of Emotional Factors

• Identify the emotions they and others are experiencing.
• Is it just one person at the table or is it multiple people at the table and why are they displeased with their visit?
• Understand how these emotions affect their thinking.
• Are they very upset because they believe something that was in the food that shouldn't be because they are allergic and could cause them to be physically ill? 
• Are they upset because this is a special occasion and it is being ruined do to a poor experience at our restaurant? 
• Or is it as simple as their meal not being prepared to their exact qualifications? 
• Use that knowledge to achieve better outcomes.
• If they are afraid that the food has nuts for example, make sure they didn't accidentally have any nuts in there dish through the kitchen staff or show the customer the ingredient list that provides information listed in the dish. Also ask if they are feeling any allergic symptoms and if you need to call an ambulance or if they have an "epipen" on them?
• If they are upset with something specific and it is effecting their special occasion how can you fix the problem and make it up to them?
• Was their food not prepared correctly? let them know you can fix the problem and have them a new meal and will not be charging them for that meal.   
• Productively manage emotions, tempering or intensifying them for whatever purpose.
• I always like to approach tables frequently to make sure everything is alright with their experience before a problem arises. This helps lower emotions in the long run.
• If a guest is utterly displeased with their experience and there is nothing you can do to accommodate them at that time, then maybe give them a free meal for their next visit. This can help by allowing time to elevate emotions so they do not intensify and at the same time trying to accommodate their needs of a good experience while eating at your restaurant.