Persuasive Messages for Customer Performance

This past weekend I attend the Frontiers in Services conference at Arizona State, sponsored by the Carey School of Business. The plenary speaker on the last day was Robert Cialdini, professor at ASU and author of the best-selling book, Influence: The Power of Persuasion.

Cialdini presented the results of a recent study in which he was investigating customer performance in relation to reusing towels in hotel rooms. In his experiment, he tried three messages:

1. Help Save The Environment
2. Partner With Us To Save The Environment
3. Join Your Fellow Guests In Saving The Environment

The first message resulted in 38% compliance. The second message resulted in 33% compliance. The third message resulted in 55% compliance, which was a significant difference. Why?

The words one uses have a big impact on customer performance. In the third message, Cialdini relies on the principle of social proof (other people are doing it -- why not you) as the key driver for getting customers to perform.

In a follow-up experiment, Cialdini combined the first and second message: We're Doing Our Part. Can We Count On You? This combination better activated the principle of reciprocation, and resulted in a compliance rate of 50%.