Drill Store Staff to Respond to Violence

This past week’s Aurora, Colorado movie theatre shooting spree highlights the importance of preparing your store staff and yourself for such incidents. After all, it was during a single one-week period last year that people were shot in an Amsterdam shopping mall, two grocery store employees were slain in Minnesota, and a Dollar General store in North Carolina was the site of a revenge killing.
     Train all hands both in how to promptly evacuate the store and, if evacuation isn’t safe, in how to hide people in a secure area which has telephone contact. And recall that, like all other training, you must practice the skills. Drill staff to respond to violence.
     From my past experience serving as the psychologist on hostage negotiation teams, here are a few more points:

• Train staff to be ready to disobey usual policies if faced with the potential for violence. Some people become highly rigid in their thinking and behavior when under substantial stress. A tunnel-vision adherence to normal routines—such as questioning whether customers and staff should be allowed in a secured office with accessible cash receipts—can worsen the danger. Let staff know it’s okay to leave registers open, cabinets unlocked, their personal belongings ripe for theft, and so on. The policy is that there is a new policy for the duration of the emergency. 
• Set a clear command hierarchy to take account of various likely contingencies. Decisive instructions are essential for avoiding unnecessary confusion. In addition, customers and staff are more likely to follow instructions delivered with decisive authority. If hostage negotiations do ensue, the negotiator will want to know unambiguously who is in charge both inside and outside the area where hostages are being held. As soon as law enforcement arrives on the scene, command is to be handed over to them. 
• Regardless of how the incident is resolved, provide professional post-trauma counseling for staff. Have it available promptly. However, also realize that for some employees—especially those who became highly constrained in their thinking and behavior—the need for counseling may not arise for a few days or weeks. 

     This combination of thorough drills and flexible thinking can save lives. “Business owner talks gunman out of robbing store” was the front page headline in an issue of the Turlock Journal last March. To pull that off, the owner eschewed rigidity. You and your staff can do that, too.

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Get the Shopper on Your Side

Game On with Consumer Competition

Engage shoppers with game formats. It’s called “gamification.” But be sure the rules of the game favor your store profitability.
     Customers have always loved to play games used as sales promotions. Scratch-off discounts. Sweepstakes. “Design our new logo” or “Name our new service” or “Tell us in 25 words or less why you shop at our store.”
     In the early days, before it was called gamification, retailers and manufacturers concluded that there needed to be real, tangible prizes for maximum participant involvement, although the value of the prizes often could be quite modest. People got involved for the joy of the contest.
     More recently, marketers are finding that no extrinsic reward at all is needed if the excitement of the game is sufficient. This love of the game blossomed with the popularity of desktop computers and then the sorts of mobile and desktop devices shoppers use for ecommerce. The word “gaming” morphed from serving as a euphemism for “gambling” into a shorthand for “playing games on a computerized gadget.” According to AllThingsD, over one billion copies of Angry Birds have been downloaded.
     The ethos of social networking channels adds to the gamification impetus: The objective is to add as many Followers and accumulate as many Likes as you can, regardless of the quality of the tally.
     I could argue that the more traffic you have, regardless of quality, the greater the probability of profitability. Thus a gamification suggestion from University of Pennsylvania researchers is worth considering: Keep up the competition. The payoff is that your game participants will exert a greater effort.
     It was a half century ago that Avis Rent A Car System unveiled a series of ads which the trade journal Advertising Age later called one of the top ten campaigns of the 20th century. The theme of the ads: “We’re number 2 in rent a cars behind Hertz, so we try harder.”
     The Pennsylvania researchers applied their theory to an analysis of data from 60,000 basketball games, including 18,000 National Basketball Association games. They found that teams which were behind by one point at halftime were more likely to end up winning the game than were teams ahead by one point at halftime.
     Being slightly in back of the leader boosts motivation, and thereby sharpens performance. Tell game participants the point levels of one or two others who are slightly ahead of them in the tally.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Differentiate Among Teen Shoppers

Teen shoppers are alike in ways important to retailers. Researchers at University of Burgundy confirmed what most would say: Clothes really count. Among a sample of 1,063 adolescents, media and music choices greatly influenced fashion choices, and the other way around. Clothing styles reflect peer influence, and the wardrobe of the teen signals to other teens the sort of people with whom associations will be welcomed.
     This stereotype appears to be more true with adolescents than with other age groups. Still, there are exceptions. Researchers at Nanjing University and Peking University found that among their sample of teens, some evidenced interpersonal attachment avoidance, preferring to shop without friends along and depending little on what friends might say to buy.
     There are also broad personality differences. Danish researchers at Syddansk Universitet and University of Southern Denmark, after studying teen consumers in 44 countries, described six market segments:

• Thrills and chills. These teens want to have fun and spend freely. 
• Quiet achievers. This group courts approval from adults. They have academic and/or artistic objectives. 
• Bootstrappers. They’re rehearsing for their future as adults, and so are caretakers. 
• Upholders. This group supports traditional cultural values. They tend to be more religious than the other groups. 
• World savers. These teens want to share with others what they have. 
• Resigned. Least spirited of the groups, these adolescents limit their expectations from products they buy. 

     Although not necessarily in the Resigned group, low-income teens are distinctive.
     When a teenager and her or his mother are shopping together, who will be making the primary purchase decisions? With low-income families, researchers at University of the West of England and University of Stirling suggest you look to both, but to the teen more than to the mother.
     In the study, 524 mothers answered questions about how savvy they considered their child to be at shopping for a summer holiday and for clothing the child would wear. Mothers from lower socioeconomic circumstances tended to see their children as skilled consumers who could be depended on to manage money and make wise purchase decisions. This was especially true when the child was older and female.
     When considering a list of item benefits, the teen might place them in a different order of importance than does the mother. Still, the teen’s final purchase preferences often reflect the mother’s. Both genetics and upbringing influence things like favoring innovative products and making compromise choices.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Slow Down Processing When Blaming Others

If blaming others for damage or inconvenience to your customers, present explanations in ways which slow down the processing by those receiving it. Text is better than video.
     Researchers at University of Washington, University of Illinois, and DePaul University looked at the case of a business publically announcing an error. Some of the study participants received the statement in text format, while the others received it as a video in the style of YouTube. Half the people in each group read or saw a statement, “We are fully responsible for this error because we relied on… advice….” The other half of people in each group instead got the statement, “We are not responsible for this error because we relied on…advice….”
     When the information was presented in a text format, there were no significant differences in rated trustworthiness of the business leadership, whether or not the leadership took responsibility. On the other hand, in the video format, the trustworthiness rating was about 54% higher when the leadership took responsibility than when not.
     Video gets a message out quickly and captures attention better than does text. But if you’re wanting consumers to realize an error was beyond your control because of the actions of others, you’re probably better off with a text press release.
     Better yet is to fix the problem instead of fixing the blame.
     Holding people responsible is different from fixing blame. Estimates by psychologists at New York University and University of Tulsa suggest that about 70% of retail employees will do less well in a store like yours if you put more emphasis on fixing the blame for the problem than on fixing the problem which caused the setback.
     Here are patterns commonly set off by blaming retail employees for mistakes:

• Denies that failure has occurred or denies any responsibility for it. The employee then begins distorting everyday business occurrences so as to avoid confronting problems. 
• Accepts some responsibility, but deflects most of the responsibility to other people or to unforeseeable circumstances. The employee then is too quick to sense only the criticism when given constructive advice. 
• Announces their responsibility in order to brag about the corrective actions they’ve taken. The employee then aims to impress managers excessively, sabotaging teamwork. 
• Wallows in self-blame out of proportion to their actual responsibility. The employee then overreacts to even minor mistakes, withdraws from necessary risk-taking, and prematurely labels setbacks as failure. 

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Fix the Problem, Not the Blame

Favor Reciprocity with a Ben Franklin Effect

Since Benjamin Franklin is known to have enjoyed a good chuckle, I’ll use a silly joke to introduce the Ben Franklin Effect:
     A guy walks into a restaurant with a bunch of friends. They all sit down at a large table and begin by placing their drink orders. The guy says, “I’ll have an iced tea. And make sure the glass is clean!”
     A few minutes later, the server returns with a tray filled with beverage containers. He gazes all around the table for a moment, looking confused, then says, “Now, which one of you wanted the clean glass?”
     The Ben Franklin Effect takes its name from a story Mr. Franklin wrote about a legislator who disliked him. Mr. Franklin decided to ask the legislator to do the favor of loaning Mr. Franklin a particular book for a few days. As Ben tells the tale, this cultivated a loyalty of the legislator toward Mr. Franklin.
     Ask someone to do you a favor and, if they agree to do it, they become more loyal to you. The waiter bringing the clean glass to the guy is now more likely to be attentive to this patron’s other requests.
     Research supports the influence of the Ben Franklin Effect, and a study at Santa Clara University found that it works nicely if the favors are reciprocal: Psychology students set up a table about ten feet from the entrance to a large supermarket. On the table sat several Rice Krispy Treats, each individually wrapped. Also on the table was a plastic cup holding five pens. Attached to the front of the table was a sign announcing a bake sale.
     No prices were posted. When someone stopped to ask the price, the experiment began. In some cases, the salesperson would say, “Hold on, let me get you a fresh one.” She’d then walk about ten feet to fetch a treat, bring it back, and set it on the table. But in doing so, she’d knock over the cup of pens, making it look like an accident. The prospective customer would almost always pick up the pens, at which point the salesperson would say the price of the treat was $4.00.
     About 70% of the prospects made the purchase. This contrasts with a 36% rate when no favors were done or requested.
     Do favors for your shoppers and ask them to do small favors for you.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Enrich Clients’ Savings Deposits

There are retailers who make money by having customers save money instead of spending money. These are the insurance agents, CPAs, attorneys, banks, and others who provide financial planning services.
     How to sell the idea of depositing money? Researchers at University of Southern California  first defined two concepts:

• Goal specificity refers to how precise a savings goal is. “I want to save $3,000 this year” has high goal specificity. “Over the next few years, I want to save as much as possible” has low goal specificity. 
• Construal level refers to how much the consumer is thinking about why to save and how much about how to save. 

     It might seem that people end up putting more money away if they have highly specific goals and if their thinking balances why to save with how to save. However, the researchers conclude that what makes a difference is the time horizon of the goal:

• If the consumer has a long-range objective, such as retirement in twenty years, emphasize why they want to save and discuss specific dollar figures. What amount do they want to end up with, and what amount do they need to deposit each month to accomplish the goal? Although both are important, “why to save” counts for more than “how to save” when perseverance is required.
• If the consumer comes with a short-term savings objective, such as making the down payment on a house, the consumer is likely to save more if moving beyond the “why” to the “how” and if encouraged to deposit as much as possible. 

     Researchers from University of Toronto asked, “Will people save more if they have multiple goals or a single goal?” At first glance, it could seem that the more goals, the more motivation to save, and therefore the more money saved.
     Surprisingly, the research finds that, in general, people with one important savings goal will deposit more. The reason turns out to do with tradeoffs. Consumers realize they can put away in savings only so much. Therefore, when they have multiple goals, the consumers spend mental energy considering the advantages and disadvantages of each goal. This process activates the “why” and leaves less energy for the “how.”
     This is okay if the client will find it easy to save. But if, as is usually the case, saving money requires the client to strictly budget, encourage the client to put primary importance on a single goal.

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