Tag: consumer behavior

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We Could Be Better at Giving Thanks

Since Thanksgiving just passed:

Although people say they want to be thanked more often at work, fewer than 50% of Americans polled for the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organization, reported that they would be very likely to thank salespeople, their mail carriers, or cleaning crews, and just 15% express daily gratitude to friends or colleagues. 74% never or rarely express gratitude to their bosses—but 70% said they’d feel better about themselves if their bosses were more grateful.

ByANDREW O’CONNELL

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When You Feel Powerful You Talk Too Much, and Your Subordinates Perform Poorly

In a computer-based simulation of a Mount Everest expedition, teams whose leaders had been induced to feel powerful (“Think about a time when you had power over someone”) achieved just 59% of their goals, in comparison with 76% by teams whose leaders hadn’t been induced to feel powerful, according Leigh Plunkett Tost of the University of Michigan, Francesca Gino of Harvard, and Richard P. Larrick of Duke. A feeling of power prompts leaders to verbally dominate, which gives the impression that they are less open to others’ ideas; this perception diminishes team performance. Organizations might be able to minimize this effect by maintaining an egalitarian culture, reminding leaders of subordinates’ importance, and encouraging employees to question the legitimacy of leaders who dominate social interactions, the researchers say.

SOURCE: When Power Makes Others Speechless: The Negative Impact of Leader Power on Team Performance

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Why It Might Be Helpful to Apologize for Something That’s Not Your Fault

An apology for something beyond anyone’s control, such as the weather, has the effect of making others trust the apologizer, says a team led by Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School. For example, when a young man approached strangers in a train station on a rainy day and said, “I’m so sorry about the rain! Can I borrow your phone?” he was successful 47% of the time, compared with just 9% if he simply asked to borrow a phone. Past studies have shown that when culpability for negative situations is ambiguous, people reward those who take blame more than those who express remorse.

customer behavior

SOURCE: I’m Sorry About the Rain!: Superfluous Apologies Demonstrate Empathic Concern and Increase Trust

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Why You Should Make Your First Price Offer Very Specific

It’s well known that you get an advantage by making the first move in a price negotiation: If you’re the seller, for example, and you offer a price before the buyer does, a higher quote from you will lead to a significantly higher agreement price. But you can increase that advantage by stating your offer as a precise, rather than a round, number, says a team led by David D. Loschelder of Saarland University in Germany. In an experiment involving customers in an antique shop, when a 1910 oak writing desk from the Jugendstil period was offered for €1,185, the average agreement price was €1,046.19; if the opening offer was €1,200, the final price was just €929.50 (customers didn’t actually buy the secretaire; they were simply asked to settle on a price).

sales

SOURCE: “€14,875?!”: Precision Boosts the Anchoring Potency of First Offers

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Chatting with the Cashier Will Improve Your Mood

consumer behavior

If you buy your coffee quickly at Starbucks without saying much of anything, you’ll probably arrive at the office sooner, but if you stop to chat with the cashier, you might get to work in a better mood. Research participants who smiled, made eye contact, and briefly conversed with the cashier subsequently reported greater satisfaction with the visit and were in better moods (4.31 versus 3.80 and 4.22 versus 3.60, respectively, on 1-to-5 scales) than those who avoided unnecessary conversation, say Gillian M. Sandstrom and Elizabeth W. Dunn of the University of British Columbia. Seemingly trivial interactions can confer a sense of belonging, an effect that people tend to overlook in their quest for efficiency, the researchers say.

SOURCE: Is Efficiency Overrated? Minimal Social Interactions Lead to Belonging and Positive Affect

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Simple Food Rituals Increase Enjoyment

See how the principle of scarcity is well and alive and tat it should be part of your marketing strategies.

People who were induced to follow ritualized behaviors such as stirring and pouring liquid and rapping their knuckles on a desk reported greater enjoyment of subsequent food-consumption experiences, says a team led by Kathleen D. Vohs of the University of Minnesota. For example, those who unwrapped and ate first one half, then the other half, of a chocolate bar rated its flavor as 5.58, on average, on a 1-to-7 scale, versus 5.22 among those who hadn’t followed the simple ritual, and their willingness to pay for the chocolate was 73% higher.
neuroscience

SOURCE: Rituals Enhance Consumption

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Sales Alert: Making Eye Contact May Not Be Such a Good Idea

consumer psychology

After gazing at the eyes of speakers who were trying to persuade them, research participants showed an average attitude shift of just 0.14 on a seven-point scale, compared with 0.6 if they had stared at the speakers’ mouths, says a team led by Frances S. Chen of the University of British Columbia in Canada. This and another experiment show that contrary to popular belief, eye contact decreases the success of attempts at persuasion, at least in the cultural context of the European university where the study was conducted. Because direct gaze has evolved in many species to signal dominance, eye contact may provoke resistance to persuasion, the researchers suggest.

SOURCE: In the Eye of the Beholder: Eye Contact Increases Resistance to Persuasion

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The Act of Choosing a Treatment May Boost Its Effect on You

For people who have a need to feel in control, making a choice about health treatments strengthens their chosen treatment’s psychological component, says a team led by Andrew L. Geers of the University of Toledo in Ohio. For example, people who put a hand in ice water for 75 seconds reported less pain (20 versus 24 on a scale up to 44) if they were given a bogus pain-prevention cream; but for high scorers on a “desire for control” test, the effect was more pronounced if they were able to select between two (equally bogus) creams. The findings are part of a growing body of research showing that patient involvement enhances treatment effectiveness.

SOURCE: Why Does Choice Enhance Treatment Effectiveness? Using Placebo Treatments to Demonstrate the Role of Personal Control

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Customers Care More About a Line’s Length than How Fast It Moves

customer behaviorCustomers Care A word of caution to companies that pool their customers into one queue with multiple servers: In deciding whether to join a line, customers care a lot more about line length than number of servers. Even if it’s moving quickly, a long line can put customers off, according to a team led by Yina Lu of Columbia University. The team’s study of supermarket customers showed that a line of 10 people can have a large impact on purchases, and increasing the queue length from 10 to 15 customers would lead to a 10% drop in sales.

SOURCE: Measuring the Effect of Queues on Customer Purchases

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Women Lose Out to Men on Competitive Exam After Doing Better on Noncompetitive Test

Women perform more poorly than men on the highly competitive entrance exam for French business school HEC Paris, even though the same women had performed significantly better, on average, than the same men on France’s pass/fail, less-competitive national baccalauréat exam two years before, says a team led by Evren Ors, a professor at the school. As a consequence, the pool of admitted candidates contains more men than women. Once women are admitted to HEC, they tend to outperform their male classmates. Tournament-like competitive contests may lead to gender differences in performance, the authors say.