Cialdini’s Yes! Inconveniencing Your Audience Can Increase Your Persuasiveness — EngagingConflicts.com
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This is part of on ongoing series reviewing Robert Cialdini’s new book, Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive. I write more about the series on the page called “Ways to Be Persuasive”. The book lists 50 strategies, and I will be reviewing each from time to time. Of course I’m not the first or only mediation blogger to write about this book! Nancy Hudgins, a San Francisco attorney-mediator and blogger posted about the book here.
Way to Be Persuasive #1.
How can inconveniencing your audience increase your persuasiveness?
This is my shorthand note to myself for this chapter: Bandwagon and social proof. Join countless others in doing this; if operators are busy, please call again. Inconvenience demonstrates social proof of “others are doing this.”
People’s ability to understand what affects their behavior is surprisingly poor. When they are not sure what to do, they tend to look around to see what other people like themselves are doing to guide their own decisions and actions. Concerning call centers, the thought process can go like this: If you get through immediately, are too few others calling in? If you have to wait [note: but not too much], doesn’t that mean lots of other people think it’s a good idea to call? Another example: hotel guests asked to help the environment by recycling their towels did increase towel recycling, but hotel guests told that the majority of other guests recycled their towels increased towel recycling even more.
