Influencing Influencers – Rule 2 – Reciprocation
In rule 1 (‘social proof`) we established that the eons of struggling to survive against predation, starvation and extinction meant that natural selection was a harsh and tight filter. The genes that made it through included methods for humans to instinctively work together, influence each other, behave with solidarity to one another and gave a psychosocial framework, previously unknown to us, without which we simply would not have made it.
So, the next link in that framework we explore here is reciprocation. I know all the endodontists are currently hearing the last 3 minutes of the 1812 Overture go off in their heads as they believe their R25 is actually the evolutionary pinnacle of 4 million years of natural selection… perhaps they’re right, lol.
But actually, it’s a different flavour of reciprocation that we are taking a slow, luscious lick of today.
The Reciprocity rule speaks to the human need (and tendency) to want to give something back when something is received. You and I feel a sense of obligation to do something for someone when they’ve done something for us.
Reciprocity affects you every day. Here are some examples:
Have you ever… invited someone to your wedding because they invited you to theirs?
…Received a Christmas gift from someone and so you quickly went onto Amazon to get them one back?
…Offered money to someone for their 24hr sponsored naked Zumba just because they sponsored you on your 24hr sponsored naked trampolining?
…taken a ‘freebie’ from the top of the deli counter and when the chef appears and asks you if you liked it, immediately got your money out to buy the full version? (the freebie became less free when he showed up and you felt indebted).
…tipped big because the waitress seemed to be particularly nice, especially to you?
Now, let’s look at unrequited reciprocation… just for fun….
- When you give up your place in the queue and… they don’t say thank you!
- When you invite them both to your wedding but you don’t get a perfumed invite back – lol, SUCKER!!
- When you are particularly attentive, kind and nice to a patient, only to have them complain about the result, the wait and your face. How does that feel? Like a total and utter betrayal, I know. (I hope you are starting to see why this is so poignant for us!!)
- When you take the tooth out really gently, quickly, kindly and painlessly, but, because the patient is so self-invested in the attention that is promised from being the victim of a difficult day at the dentist, they behave as if you just chainsawed off their feet.
- When you buy her flowers and drinks and dinner and she wincingly responds ‘perhaps’ to a second date request (and is clearly wondering why she thought a wobbly, girdle-wearing Netflix and Dominoes addict would ever be Prince Charming – actual lolz!).
- When you turn the world upside down for the patient, exhausting yourself of emotional energy, staying late, dying a little inside… and they act like the victim and like they have done you a favour. Then they don’t settle the bill and tell the manager you were rough and seemed nervous.
- You fit the dentures… and the patient refuses to pay, saying they don’t fit well – but won’t give them up.
- The simplest example is an exchange of names. Imagine this was your conversation.
You: Hi, how are you?
Them: I’m good, you? Also what’s your name?
You: I’m well, my name is Rich, yours?
Them: I’m not going to share my name.
Even this lack of willingness to share back something as small as a name feels dreadfully unfair.
Reciprocation is a concept based on our innate need for fairness. Most people play fair, but there were always a couple of kids in the playground who never could. They cheated and could bully and always demanded to win by any means. They had no friends. They just grew up and became adult dental patients! Lol.
And they definitely are well past the neuroplastic age for innately understanding fair play.
Enough of the negative; let’s explore the positives more. I’d like to expand the waitress example a little more. This was part of the original group of studies looking at reciprocation, and it went like this.
The outcome was to measure if with a single change in a specific action at the time of delivering the bill to a group of diners, waitresses could get more tips, and, if so, how much more.
(Hetero-male readers, please ignore the question as to whether she is very attractive or not. Female readers, please try to ignore if she seemed like a bitch who is effortlessly using her looks to flirt with all male customers and take vast sums of money off them whilst seemingly ‘just doing her job’ when she serves you. I write this because follow-up studies have shown this is very real too – people’s behaviour is just too funny, and being very good looking as a young woman (or man) is a massive unfair life hack; it’s just what it is). Read ‘Survival of the Prettiest’ by Nancy Etcoff if you want to understand this power.
So here she is, this waitress. She will present the bill and deliver some minty sweets with it, as is now the norm (and is actually now the norm because of this experiment!!!).
Here are the three methods of delivery (to be compared to just putting the bill on the table):
- Bill on the table presented with one mint per diner and no talking about the mint.
- Bill on the table and the words ‘I’d like to give you all a sweet treat too?’ The right number of mints are then given out: two per customer.
- Exactly the same as number one, i.e., just one mint each; then, just a step or two into walking away, the waitress stops, pauses then turns around and says ‘you deserve more than that,’ walks back and doubles the mint allocation to two.
The increase in tips was 23% with method 3, compared to just 3% with method 1. That is a vast revenue increase for almost zero investment (compared to a basic tip control with zero mints). Yes, it’s a little manipulative, but it illustrates the phenomenon extremely well.
Key Point: If you compare methods 2 and 3, the mint allocation was the same. The only variable was the apparently spontaneous and authentic personal decision the waitress seemed to make. That upgraded the tips from 14% to 23%.
This evidence has been jumped upon and used, but somewhat lazily. The frustrating part being people get it almost right but miss the detail. It’s a good example of a lazy deployment of science by many, in the mindless hope it works. A ‘quick win’ or ‘tips and tricks’ approach.
The details and methodology are crystal clear above, but most restaurant owners simply read the abstract and not the methodology or discussion, and so when training their staff to get increased tips it amounts to little more than ‘Give some mints and you get more money, innit?’
That’s why you and I get some chocolates thrown at you as the bill lands. I’m sure some of the ones I’ve been offered have been licked before.
The nuance of the successful method is that it is the person’s behaviour, doing the small extra and unexpected favour, that increased the tips, not the mint!
There is good evidence the obligation to return favours and kindness has good longevity. We find it easy to remember debt in the long term.
Nevertheless the waitress example needs to be understood. It was their authenticity in the behaviour that made the reciprocation so powerful. Inauthentic attempts at buying people are crass and unwelcome. A blatant attempt to offer trinkets of little worth to a patient will make them distrustful of you, and the contempt in which you may (or may not) hold them becomes clear to them. No-one EVER likes to be held in contempt, so think this through before you deploy it. Maybe even run the ideas by someone else (we are happy to help).
So here is how it works in dentistry…
Our patient needs to feel they have been on the receiving end of a specific, useful and unplanned act of kindness from you to them.
The easiest way to do that is to be a healthcare worker with a mindset to be kind and unnecessarily generous (that doesn’t mean extravagant) and see if an opportunity to express this wish arises.
Ask yourself, do you find it possible to create that genuine mindset? To truly care about patients?
For this to work you genuinely have to care about patients’ happiness and health. It’s not unreasonable of me to assume this is ok for you… I bloody hope so.
As this has to at least seem authentic, if you already do actually care, then that will work. If you don’t, you better be bloody good at acting (you’re not, BTW).
As usual, examples are the best, and for this I bring you the single best, truly authentic display of natural reciprocation I have ever seen. AND yes, you guessed it, my brother-from-another-mother is the genius behind it. NOW what makes it even better is Raheel was doing this naturally, years ago, before the descriptive science came up in our conversation.
The scene:
Raheel is at work, hair slick, six-pack like a prowling lion barely caged by the soft cotton tunic, Tom Ford Eau de Parfum gently lulling the senses of his already hopelessly in love nurse. She is good at nursing but endlessly doodles pictures of what she thinks their children would look like when she should be pressing the button on the Valo light.
Anyway, the lighting is good, the mood is right; the patient, coming towards the end of their consult, is happy and may decide to come back for some treatment.
But they have some inflamed gingival tissue. You can’t work on a canvas that bleeds, so no art possible here. Raheel shows the patient how to use Tepes. Not so it’s a chore they have to do, but so it becomes something they want to do. They want to do it for health, for them, for him, whatever. That’s the emotional intelligence key, turning a dentist’s request into a patient’s goal, a chore into a desire.
Anyway they love the idea of using Tepes and are already grateful for the expertise and attention being shown, as they now see the value. So, as an extra, Raheel gives them a couple of Tepes out of a newly opened pack and goes to hand them to the patient…
… then his hand pauses… he doesn’t hand them over. Instead he puts them back in the packet, and says, ‘You know what, you can have the whole pack, it’s free, for you.’ Then hands it to them with a smile.
Genius. Actual EI genius.
If reading this you are thinking I am being overly generous with praise and accolade about this seemingly irrelevant gesture then you need to immediately lock yourself in a dark room alone, away from society and think long and hard about why life hasn’t worked out how you hoped it to so far; I would then reread this, and then once more, and hopefully one day you’ll know. Maybe; maybe not. Come back when you are ready.
The small act is massively powerful and Raheel has to turn private patients away frequently. It’s obviously only one part of an approach to how he makes patients feel. Each one special, each one important and each one lucky to see him as their dentist.
Another dental example.
Make patients feel special and unique.
The patient’s perception of your offer – even if it’s generic – should be that it is offered to him or her individually. This can be achieved by offering a gift or benefit that is related to the patient’s psychographic or demographic profile. This may be a mouthwash or Tooth Mousse flavoured to their preferences.
It may be a birthday card or balloon for their daughter near her first ever dental visit.
Emotional reciprocation is where you make people feel good. Simply saying things like,
“Thank you, it’s a pleasure to meet you, I know how busy you are.”
‘The Socratic Method’ means to simply ask a lot of questions. The more questions you ask of another person and listen closely to the answers, the more the person will like you and be more open to being influenced by you. Most people’s favourite subject is themselves. Ask open questions about themselves and their lives.
Give patients a gift of value that benefits their lives outside their relationship with your practice, or make sure the gift is spontaneous, meaningful and just for them.
