This seemingly harmless phrase ruins relationships, derails sales, and pours gasoline on already inflamed customer service situations:
“Like I said…”
Think about it for a moment — you’ve just asked for something that’s important to you and the person’s response starts with, “Like I said…” How does that make you feel?
Even in the best situations, it can easily sound like:
“Listen, dummy, didn’t you hear me the first time?”
Over the years, I’ve seen countless sales and customer service professionals unknowingly manufacture disaster with this phrase. Then they walk away completely baffled as to why they lost a sale or why their customer suddenly went from minor frustration to all out war.
It’s so ingrained in our communication culture that we don’t even think twice about using it. Full disclosure: I still catch myself starting to say it from time to time.
Even in small organizations, “Like I said…” can be responsible for thousands of dollars of top-line revenue loss — not to mention added customer service cost and increased expenses related to customer/employee retention.
Yikes! All that from three, seemingly innocent words? Sadly, yes. So I guess it’s a good thing we have some other options!
Our first alternative is to avoid using an “I’ve already told you before.” type of phrase altogether. If it’s not necessary in order to find a solution, then skip it. However, since so many business conversations require referencing previously discussed information, here are some effective alternatives to “Like I said…”:
As I mentioned…
While this phrase is certainly less argumentative and/or condescending, it doesn’t sound quite as personal as the other alternatives below. So it’s typically best used in more official settings and ideal for emails. This and all the other alternative phrases can be softened even more with a variety of suffix words/phrases:
- As I mentioned earlier…
- As I mentioned last time we talked…
- As I mentioned when we spoke on Tuesday…
Notice “before” isn’t listed as a suffix option. That’s because it can very easily sound argumentative. Maybe that’s because it’s so often used in conjunction with “Like I said…”
If we want to run even less risk of manufacturing frustration, simply add one word to this first alternative…
As I may have mentioned…
An even softer variation that can be used with someone who is already frustrated or is typically sensitive. It also has a much kinder ring to it. This is the best variation to use in situations where we’re not sure if we’ve already discussed that exact information.
While these two alternatives are far better than “Like I said…,” they can sound a bit businessy and/or scripty (I’m not entirely sure those are real words). Personally, I prefer the variations that sound more natural:
As we talked about…
I’m a huge fan of any sort of communication that puts everyone on the same team against a challenge. Including the pronoun “we” serves that purpose. Plus, “talked” is more conversational and doesn’t risk coming across as if we’re trying too hard to sound professional.
Like we talked about…
While I’ve always liked this natural-sounding alternative, in certain situations there can be bit of danger when starting with “Like” because it can create a nano-second association to “Like I said…”, especially if you’re not using a positive, helpful tone. That’s where this simple variation comes in…
Kind of like we talked about…
It’s difficult to sound negative or combative when we say this version — as if a positive tone is built into the words themselves. Go ahead and try it! See? It’s conversational and adding “Kind of…” almost completely diminishes the risk of coming across as argumentative. A far cry from “Like I said…”, right? Also, since it’s phrased as if we’re talking about a somewhat separate subject, there’s very low risk of accidentally creating an overall “I’m right and you’re wrong!” communication environment.
Try saying all of these phrases out loud in order to hear how they sound progressively more positive and helpful.
- Like I said…
- As I mentioned…
- As I may have mentioned…
- As we talked about…
- Like we talked about…
- Kind of like we talked about…
Now you can mix and match endings to find the phrases that work best for you and your unique circumstances:
- As I mentioned in my email to accounting…
- Kind of like we talked about earlier…
- As I may have mentioned last time we talked…
- Like we talked about last Thursday…
- As we talked about during yesterday’s meeting…
Like I said, there are much better alternatives to this phrase to help create and maintain positive relationships! 🙂
