In a study demonstrating this, participants were assigned to imagine they went for a massage in order to ease their stress and relieve their shoulder pain. Some of the participants were further told that when they arrived for the massage, the receptionist assigned them a number as their ID. The other participants were told instead that the receptionist asked them the name they wanted to be used as their ID.
All the participants were then told the massage therapist summoned them from the waiting room using their ID and designed a customized treatment based on a brief interview. But the massage therapist was rude, and the massage did not sufficiently relieve the shoulder pain. The study participant assignment ended with questions about how dissatisfied they were because of these service failures.
Those participants told they’d been assigned a number reported less dissatisfaction than did those told they’d been called by name. An accompanying study identified the explanation for this difference as calling a customer by number instead of name producing feelings of dehumanization. When someone feels dehumanized, they become emotionally numb, so are less disturbed by lower quality service.
Whether your customer who receives bad service on top of feeling dehumanized will come again is another question, not answered by this set of studies. The researchers recommend marketers consider using number IDs when perceptions of service failures are likely. I’ll add my impression that the method might be of most use in service situations where consumers expect some degree of dehumanization and the service is required. Department of Motor Vehicles transactions fit that description.
In a related finding, researchers at Tilburg University, York University, and Cornell University suggest that when serving customers who are feeling crummy about themselves, you start out by showing inferior alternatives within a product category. Study participants chose between Budweiser lager versus Tesco lager, a BOSS suit versus a Primark suit, and Reyka vodka in a glass bottle versus Skol vodka in a plastic bottle. The participants also completed a self-esteem scale. Those reporting low self-esteem were more likely to choose for their own use the inferior alternative.
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