One of the most mentally exhausting aspects of the particular online platform my family use to sell goods is customers asking for discounts.
People who would never dream of walking into a physical shop and asking for a discount are more than happy to chance it through text messaging.
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with people doing this. It's part of the game and appears to be seen as part of the spirit of the platform we use.
I have seen regular complaints about sellers who write no offers/discounts in their bios in Facebook discussion groups.
So we never wanted to do this, but we also don't want to give discounts. This is where the exhaustion comes from. Every time someone asks, it just seems so reasonable.
Well, not every time. We've had customers ask for 50% off or more.
No use to complain about this though, as many sellers have on Facebook. Such customers are obviously not doing the maths before they make these offers.
Our products are pretty low-priced compared to others on the platform. When a customer asks us to sell them a £10 product for £5, they're not thinking that's a 50% discount.
More likely, they're thinking in terms of the absolute numbers, neither of which are very big. You might say they occupy the same mental space.
Viewing things this way is an idea I got from one of my favourite entrepeneurs, Derek Sivers. He used this idea of numbers occupying the same mental space to price his services higher than he otherwise would have, and it paid handsomely.
These customers are also not thinking in terms of costs the seller has to cover. They don't know, and they probably don't want to. So to the people sending lengthy replies about how a particular offer will leave you at a loss or a smaller profit than you would like, just stop. They don't care!
But most of our customers are just asking for free postage or a few pounds off. And it is this very reasonableness that makes them so difficult to decline.
We have used templates for a long time now to give consistent and speedy customer service, and these have worked brilliantly in all kinds of scenarios. We had one to politely decline offers.
But every time we were asked for a small discount, a struggle began. We stopped to think about it, every time.
I've thought about what motivated us to do this. One possible reason is that declining discounts is not in keeping with the spirit of the platform.
Although, customers who do not purchase cannot leave reviews or retaliate in any way to our saying no, so this was a very irrational worry.
The second was that if they still purchased the item, we'd get a bad review. This was a little more concerning. Reviews are a big thing on our platform.
So that is why I resolved to develop a template, using the principles of persuasion and compliance I have recently been studying.
When the moment came to apply it the first time, I was hesitant as usual. She asked for free postage for one item. I felt kind of bad but was excited to apply what I had learned.
The result was that she purchased the item at full price, and left us a fantastic five-star review citing our excellent communication.
So what did the template say, and why?
It used our stock opening line for all new customers, thanking them for their interest in our products. After this is where it gets interesting.
The first line told them - without apology - that we were not looking to do any discounts on individual items.
I haven't come across this in any psychological literature, but I think giving the impression that it is a store policy and that you are not specifically declining that individual's offer helps soften the answer.
More than this, the template tells them we are not looking to do discounts on individual items because we prefer to save discounts for purchases of multiple items.
In a Twitter thread I spoke about the power of because. This is backed by research. The most well-known study is that of the copying machine.
When the researcher asked to jump in front of someone in a copying machine queue, with no further explanation, a few said yes.
When they asked to jump in front because they were in a hurry, many more said yes.
But here's where it gets weird. When they asked to jump in front because they needed to make some copies, a similar number of people still said yes!
Even though the so-called 'reason' actually provided no additional information, people still complied with the request. It appears because is something of a compliance trigger word for people.
So I made sure to include a because reason - even though it does not add too much - in the new template.
In keeping with the spirit of the platform, I don't think it looks good to say we are not open to offers at all, and this reason helps with this. It also subtly informs the customer that many of our customers buy more than one item, or that there is some expectation to.
So the next part asks them if they have seen anything else they like, because if they buy three items I can offer them for £45 including postage.
This single sentence incorporates a couple of classic sales techniques.
The first is asking for a big commitment, three items, which I honestly don't expect a new customer to take. If they do, then fantastic, but the real reason is to make a subsequent single purchase feel like a smaller step.
I do not ask for an unrealistacally large commitment, which would expose the technique and probably just annoy people. I could never ask them to buy ten items, for example.
The second, similar technique at play here is throwing them a big number: £45 (my items are £10-£15). By relative comparison, the price of the item they are asking about should now seem diminished.
Again, not unrealistically big. And, for the record, this is actually an offer that is advertised on the store homepage and which I will obviously honour if they accept.
The final part of the template also makes use of two key persuasive approaches: reciprocity and trust.
I tell them that I will hold one of this item back so they can take a look (for anyhting else they may like).
It is hard to engage reciprocity through an online business. You can't send someone a free gift or a sample in advance. Yet it is a potent psychological driver of compliance.
In this sentence, I am trying to engage it by doing them a favour. Namely, holding an item back for them.
I just tell them that I am doing this. There is no point to ask them if they would like me to. That would only be another opportunity to say no.
Remember the goal here is to close a sale, with no discount, and protect myself from bad reviews. Helping them in this way potentially helps assists three goals.
Moreover, holding an item back from sale means I am unable to sell it to someone else. Therefore, I am acting in their interests and to the detriment of my own. This is an important builder of trust.
Trust, of course, is not just a powerful motivator to comply with someone's request, but necessary to persuade someone to transact with you.
Holding the item back for them immediately may even imply scarcity, like there is only few of the product and I expect they will run out fast, another strong motivator of behaviour.
And that's it. In this very short template, I've employed a variety of well-researched persuasive techniques, but in an exceedingly polite, subtle and informal manner.
It is definitely worth noting that imitation encourages liking too, so the message is not quite written as I have outlined above, but is written to mirror the vernacular of our target customers.
And the psychological techniques do not stop there. After studying about the power of written commitments in Robert Cialdini's book Influence, I crafted this template to encourage customers to reply with a written commitment to purchase.
According to the research, all commitments are powerful, but written commitments even more so. But how do you get a customer to send you a message basically saying "I want to buy your product"?
Well, I've made them an offer that I don't expect they will accept. But I do expect that - having been amply persuaded by the other techniques in the template - they will reply with something like "I'll just buy this one, thank you."
And this is exactly what happened.
What's more is that if they don't reply, I can follow up by asking them directly whether they still want the item (remember I am holding back the item for them), and forcing the written commitment.
So there it is, a psychologically loaded sales template with proven success so far and the rationale behind it all. I hope there is something here that other small businesses can apply with the same success.
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