Sign Up Customers for Store-Self Identity

While I was shopping for a new Toyota years ago, a salesman asked me to sign my name on a blank index card. I’d made what I considered to be my final price offer. He said, “To show that you’re serious, I’ll ask you to put your signature on this index card. I’ll take it along with your offer to show the sales manager.”
     As a set of University of Alberta researchers point out, the act of writing our signature has more than legal implications. The act is tied to our psychological identity.
     In one study, the researchers selected a group of consumers who considered running as a sport to be an important part of their self-image and another group who did not. Some of the people in each of the two groups were asked to print their names as part of a task, while the rest of the people were asked to write their signature. Then each of the study participants was asked to shop for a pair of running shoes while the researchers watched.
     Among those people who considered running an important component of their self-identity, those who had written their signature ended up spending more time in the store and trying on more running shoes than those who had been asked to print their name.
     Wait a second! Was spending more time in the store trying on more shoes a good outcome? Wouldn’t we prefer to have customers come in, make a purchase quickly, and leave? No, not really. Those who spend more time in the store are likely to see more items to buy. The research findings indicated that signing the name accomplished this by strengthening an association between the customer’s self-identity and the personality of the store. So we’d expect to see more repeat business.
     All this was not true, however, for the study participants who did not associate their identity with running as a sport. In fact, those who had signed their names spent less time in the store than those who had printed their names.
     That car salesman’s execution of the tactic with me was flawed. I refused to sign a blank index card. Still, the tactic itself has research support: If a customer identifies with your store or a product there, having them sign their name—such as to register for a prize drawing—usually strengthens the store-customer or product-customer identification.

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Name Your Customers