Give Customers Assurance They Belong

In the old TV series “Cheers,” the draw of the bar was that, as the theme song said, “…everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.” People select hairdressers and even hardware stores on the same basis.
     You might be unable to recall the name of each customer. But you can let every customer know they belong.
     Consumer researchers showed how the opposite of warm acceptance—cold rejection—motivates people to buy. Participants in a study at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, Florida State University, Southern Utah University, University of British Columbia, and University of Minnesota were placed in pairs. Then one of the pair would resign from the team. In some cases, the remaining partner was led to believe this happened because the departing teammate disliked their partner. In these cases, the remaining partner became more likely to buy relatively useless products and spend premium amounts on foods they themselves disliked, but thought their partner would like.
     The power of this escape-from-rejection means it is easy for a retailer to use it unethically. Don’t. But with those exceptions, use welcoming acceptance as a sales tool:

• If you learn that a customer is experiencing feelings of rejection, guide them toward products carrying a feeling of nostalgia. Hey, offer them a nostalgic cookie brand. Researchers at Netherland’s Erasmus University and at Arizona State University had study participants play a computer game. The game was rigged such that some of the participants were quickly excluded. Those excluded participants became more likely to prefer older—rather than the latest—versions of items ranging from food brands to shower gel. In the study, rejected participants reported feeling better after eating a cookie carrying a brand name popular in the past. This didn’t happen nearly as often with new brand cookies.
• Shoppers going through significant life changes, like divorce or college graduation, become more open to your recommendations to try out product upgrades and less familiar brands.
• To the degree that it is socially appropriate, gently touch the customer. Researchers at Tel Aviv University assessed the results of a retail employee touching customers in settings that included a supermarket, a restaurant, and a bookstore. There, a brief touch on the arm of a customer led to the customer feeling more positive about the retailer. And positive feelings toward a retailer increase the potential for financial profitability.

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Use Customer Life Changes to Switch Brands
Touch Customers