Loyalty
Reciprocity
We’re hardwired to return kindness received
We call Reciprocity the glue that binds us as a society.
No surprise then that it’s a powerful tool to help people make decisions that are both pro-social and a win-win.
When the Behavioural Insights Team were asked by the UK Government to increase the rates of job-seekers turning up to interviews, they applied the principle of Reciprocity to boost rates.
They changed the text message being sent out from:
“You’ve been booked an interview at Tesco on Friday at 10am”
to:
“Dave,
I’ve booked you an interview at Tesco on Friday at 10am.
Good luck.
Roxy”
This shift from a passive tone of voice to an active tone, where Roxy had done something kind for you (and you then wanted to reciprocate by turning up), increased attendance from 10% up to a whopping 27%.
We call Reciprocity the glue that binds us as a society.
No surprise then that it’s a powerful tool to help people make decisions that are both pro-social and a win-win.
When the Behavioural Insights Team were asked by the UK Government to increase the rates of job-seekers turning up to interviews, they applied the principle of Reciprocity to boost rates.
They changed the text message being sent out from:
“You’ve been booked an interview at Tesco on Friday at 10am”
to:
“Dave,
I’ve booked you an interview at Tesco on Friday at 10am.
Good luck.
Roxy”
This shift from a passive tone of voice to an active tone, where Roxy had done something kind for you (and you then wanted to reciprocate by turning up), increased attendance from 10% up to a whopping 27%.
407 pedestrians in Brittany, France were approached by a young woman and asked to complete a survey. Before the request, half were offered candy and the other half were not.
The results found that people - especially women - were far more likely to reciprocate and answer the survey after receiving a gift than when not.
Act first.
Find ways to initiate reciprocity with consumers. Merely asking those satisfied to go tell their friends will work (Söderlund et al., 2015).
Make it a ‘common habit’.
When we’re told that a behavior is a social norm shared by others, we’re more likely to reciprocate. Households in USA and India consume significantly less electricity when told that their neighbors are consuming less (Sudarshan, 2014). In the long-term, any consistent, successful behaviors will be adopted as the default for others.
Do it in person.
Reciprocation appears to be more powerful when requests from strangers are made face to face rather than online. This is due to the persuasive impact of immediacy that physicality affords, the higher levels of digital suspicion and the sheer number of emails people receive (Meier, 2016).
Conversion
Salience
Our choices are determined by the information we're shown
What info we decide to surface visually has a powerful effect on peoples’ decisions. The same is also true for what we choose to hide.
For instance, if I wanted to design a work environment where people ate more fruit, I could buy bananas and apples but store them in the fridge, out of view.
But this would have what we call “low salience”, or a low likelihood of being seen.
Instead, to boost fruit consumption further, we’d want to increase Salience.
So now, instead of hiding the fruit in the fridge, we put it in large colourful bowls in central, highly visible areas of the office in eye line and within arm’s reach.
Now the fruit have “high salience” and are much more likely to be eaten.
Note that this also has second order effects; more salience from the fruit bowls means more people eating fruit, creating a powerful salience cycle.
What do you want people to do more or be more aware of? How can you increase its salience next to other things?
Another strategy is to remove other things around it to increase salience in relative terms. So in the fruit example, we might want to remove the coffee machine to give the bowls greater salience.
What info we decide to surface visually has a powerful effect on peoples’ decisions. The same is also true for what we choose to hide.
For instance, if I wanted to design a work environment where people ate more fruit, I could buy bananas and apples but store them in the fridge, out of view.
But this would have what we call “low salience”, or a low likelihood of being seen.
Instead, to boost fruit consumption further, we’d want to increase Salience.
So now, instead of hiding the fruit in the fridge, we put it in large colourful bowls in central, highly visible areas of the office in eye line and within arm’s reach.
Now the fruit have “high salience” and are much more likely to be eaten.
Note that this also has second order effects; more salience from the fruit bowls means more people eating fruit, creating a powerful salience cycle.
What do you want people to do more or be more aware of? How can you increase its salience next to other things?
Another strategy is to remove other things around it to increase salience in relative terms. So in the fruit example, we might want to remove the coffee machine to give the bowls greater salience.
Over 10 days, millions of people using online ticket marketplace Stubhub were put into two groups, where 15% ticket fees were either made salient up front during ticket browsing, or hidden until checkout.
Results found that for those with delayed salience of the fee, revenue increased by 21%, with a quarter of this due to higher priced tickets being bought.
What is seen is what is done
Surfacing key information in a timely fashion can prompt us to do more of what we aspire to. For instance, Amazon have redesigned their Kindle so that when it's not in use, the screensaver becomes the cover of the book you're currently reading. This acts as a salient reminder to read as one notices the Kindle throughout the day. We can use the same approach to boost healthy eating, having a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table over one filled with salty cashews. What do you want users to do more of? How do you want them to feel? What unique or delightful features can you surface that will help inspire action and make Tiny Habits that much more likely to form?
More knowledge isn't necessarily better
There's a trade-off between what's presented to us now and making good decisions for our future. For instance, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase choose to omit the % gained or lost from one's investments. Research shows that if they instead showed this, people may incorrectly sell coins that have increased in value, while keeping coins that have dropped in value, known as the Disposition Effect.
Differentiate by removing information
Whereas knowledge can be power, it can also demotivate. For example, weight loss scales Shapa does away with the number telling you how much you weigh, instead providing 5 colour bands denoting averaged performance. Omitting the number shifts us away from short term fluctuations in weight that can lead to feelings of failure causing us to give up. What information or options could you hide that could otherwise lead users to short term or harmful outcomes? What can you remove that could confuse or overwhelm?
Delayed salience can trigger shock
Also consider the ethical implications of hiding key information, as in the study above. In this case, any reactance felt will be relative to the proportion of the extra fees incurred, customer expectations, industry norms and how frequent the transaction is. Hidden fees on more regular transactions like grocery shopping will be subject to higher levels of reactance than one-offs like a car purchase. There is an art to surfacing such painful information at the correct time in order to generate a sale. Try adding an explanation of why the fee exists to reduce drop-off, like Airbnb do.
Member login
Simple one-time payment
Ex-VAT