If you wonder why you have a hard time saying “no” to the neighborhood kid selling Girl Scout cookies, think twice, because the company behind the scheme is targeting your automatic pressure points.
Yesterday, my dad went outside to pick up the newspaper and two college students followed him to the front door offering to shampoo his carpets in one of his rooms for free. They said, in addition the free benefit, their employer would give them money to continue their schooling for the next semester.
The sales pitch was phrased in a way that was likely to push psychological buttons to reciprocate on a favor: “I will shampoo your carpets for free and there is no obligation. Also, I will get money for school if I am allowed to complete this task.”
While my father would not think twice about inviting these kids into his house to shampoo the carpets in exchange for school money, I knew that transaction would not stop there. The marketing company would push their limits further under the premise that the customer had given them implicit permission to do so. They could technically use this same information of the name and address of the residence, and perhaps have this information sold to others, or follow up to the call with other requests. The owner of the house, who feels obliged to keep consistent with previous requests will be less likely to decline.
Also, people are less likely to say “no” to children, those who are younger because human beings are conditioned, naturally, to take care of the young. Or as the saying goes, if babies were not cute, we would probably get sick of them.
These cases are much more blatant in face-to-face interaction, but often appear in the form of spam or obvious execution of personal branding.
I have noticed (at least for myself) that when a consumer sales deal is done in a “speed dating” fashion, it feels cheap. It also leads to after-shopping guilt, a syndrome some shoppers feel after making an expensive purchase.
In sum, manipulating your customers for a quick sale is no way to build loyalty and long term rewards, but it’s great for that one-time instantaneous purchase.
