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No one likes waiting in lines, especially when it’s at the Post Office on a muggy, 90 degree afternoon. Yet, that’s exactly where I found myself today.
Standing there, sweating and impatiently shifting weight from foot to foot I never imagined the situation would provide inspiration for blog fodder. One never really knows until the moment strikes.
Even though I’m the last person in a line of about 15 people, by some strange mechanics the two postal clerks are right in front of me. I had a front row seat to what happened next. A woman walks into the building, instead of getting in line behind me she walks up to the employees at the counter and asks, “Excuse me, I need to send this package right now. Could you help me?”
Replying rather gruffly, the postal worker pointed to the line, “You’ll have to wait like everyone else ma’am.”
And so the simple request ended unsatisfactorily for the woman, she sullenly waited in line like everyone ahead of her.
Even so, the woman’s failure got me thinking, what could she have done differently to achieve her desired outcome?
For starters, she should have directly addressed the people in line rather than the clerk.
More importantly, the woman should have provided a reason for her request. For instance, “Excuse me, I need to send this package right now because I have an appointment to make in 15 minutes,” would have increased the chance or her skipping to the front. As Robert Cialdini points out in his book, “Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive,” using the word “because” drastically increases the rate of compliance. He references a study by Ellen Langer, who showed that using because in a request to make Xerox copies ahead of someone else led to a 94% compliance rate versus 60% when no reason is supplied.
This held true, even when the reason is complete jibberish. The woman might have said, “Excuse me, may I get ahead of you because I have to mail this package?” Well, duh of course you’re here to mail the package, after all this is a post office. Despite unsound requests, the study Cialdini references shows people still maintained a high compliance of 93%.
However, the power of the word has it’s limits. If the woman had an armful of packages that needed to be weighed, people in line would be less receptive to letting her skip ahead. Plus, I’m confident that it has less effect with a crowd of people than just a handful.
What’s really interesting is how to take this knowledge and apply it to your business. The power of because also works in reverse. Research by Gregory Maio and colleagues shows that when people are asked to reiterate their reasons for doing business with a company they have a more favorable opinion of the business afterwards. In addition to providing valuable insights, those customer feedback surveys may allow long-time customers realize they’re decision to use you as a supplier is not out of habit but based on reason.
You should read Cialdini’s book “Yes,” because it raises awareness of how persuasive techniques affect you, and how you can use ethical strategies to be a better persuader. Not to mention the next time you’re at the post office it might get you through the line a little faster.
Tags: behavior, persuasion
