We might attribute this to guilt: The consumer who has lied is motivated to make up for the sin by being nice to others, and so exaggerates the degree of satisfaction. But this explanation doesn’t work on the other end: Liars who would otherwise have been somewhat dissatisfied with service delivery are instead highly dissatisfied.
The researchers’ explanation is a bit convoluted: For most consumers, telling a falsehood takes cognitive effort. Philosophers have said, in varied ways, that a liar needs to exercise a good memory. Because of the mental fatigue, the liars don’t closely track the progress of service delivery and are therefore more surprised than are truth tellers by the outcome. The surprise accounts for the stronger emotional reaction.
How does this apply to your retail operations? The answer has to do with rewards which shoppers believe they get for lying.
- They think that lavishing unjustified praise on a service provider will encourage the provider to give better service
- They assume that making a big fuss of complaints will extort the service provider into granting favors
- They want to return a purchased item, but can do so only by fibbing about the reason
If you choose to discourage such lying, here are three techniques:
- Have the customer seated while you’re standing. Raise your head slightly and extend your arms so your body occupies more space than usual. Columbia University researchers found that this makes it more difficult for a shopper to lie to you.
- Ask brief questions that require the shopper to tell events in an order different from the usual one. Researchers at University of Portsmouth in the UK and University of Gothenburg in Sweden found that asking people to tell a confabulated story, but with the events in reverse order, made the liar’s nervousness obvious.
- Eyeball the eyes. Liars shift their gaze rapidly or will fix their gaze on something aside from your face.
Lie in Wait for Lying Shoppers
Facilitate Customer Truth-Telling
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