Wow, What Are the Odds of That?

Salespeople have long known that establishing rapport with a customer can help close a sale. And in these days of the cautious consumer, the tactic of revealing personal information about personnel "has become increasingly popular in sales and customer-service contexts," a group of researchers recently reported.

One of the factors their research focused on was "incidental similarity," where two people notice a coincidentally shared history or experience. The team conducted five tests to examine the effect of incidental similarity between a salesperson and a potential customer in different sales environments.

In one experiment, pairs of participants were asked for feedback on a new "personal trainer program" to be offered at a local recreation center. They were provided a brochure describing the program that included a short biography of a "trainer." The bio was altered for one of the two participants in each pairing to include the birth date of the trainer—which coincidentally matched the birthday of the participant.

The results? "The existence of a shared birthday significantly increased an individual's intention to enroll in the program," the researchers report.

Based on this and other experiments, the researchers conclude that incidental similarity can "play an important role ... in establishing rapport with a client at an early stage." In fact, establishing a connection "based merely on incidental similarities may be sufficient to influence consumer decision-making," they say.

Their advice for managers includes tips like this one: "Merely having staff members put their hometown on their name badges can help to initiate conversation and make customers feel that they are special and more familiar."

The Po!nt: Go ahead and share. As customers become ever more wary and discerning, a simple, honest attempt by a salesperson to identify common ground may help more than you think.

Source: "The Persuasive Role of Incidental Similarity on Attitudes and Purchase Intentions in a Sales Context," by Lan Jiang, Joandrea Hoegg, Darren W. Dahl and Amitava Chattopadhyay. Journal of Consumer Research, 2010.

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