The Secret to Increase Compliance & Conversions

TLDR:

We like to be consistent because it makes us look good (reliable, and trustworthy) and saves mental effort (using past choices as a guide). When we commit to something, we're more likely to follow through to avoid feeling bad (dissonance) about being inconsistent.

✍️ Do our commitments make us irrational?

Imagine you are in a racetrack and 10 cars are competing. If someone would ask you to guess the likelihood that any of these cars has to win, you would say 10%, right? If you know nothing about the cars, that would be a logical assumption.

But imagine that you place a $100 bet on car number 7 and someone asks you to guess the likelihood that the car would win. In this case, you would probably state that car number 7 has a better chance than the other ones. Otherwise, why would you bet on that car?

This exact behavior was observed in a horse racetrack. People who bet on horses were way more likely to believe that the specific horse would win after placing the bet versus before placing the bet. Why? Because of our desire to stay consistent with our actions and commitments.

🧠 We feel personal and social pressure to stay consistent

When we make decisions and take a stand on something, we will convince ourselves that the decision is the right one and act in a way that is consistent with that commitment. Here are a few reasons why this happens.

Desire for Consistency:

• Self-image: We want to maintain a positive & consistent self-image. When we make a decision or commitment, it becomes part of how we view ourselves. Going back on our word can feel like going back on who we are, creating dissonance and making us feel like liars.

• Social validation: Consistency is a valued social trait. It shows reliability, trustworthiness, and stability – qualities we generally want to project. Breaking a commitment can make us feel untrustworthy, irrational, or unreliable.

Mental Shortcuts:

• Decision fatigue: We face a vast number of decisions daily. Leveraging past choices as a reference point for future ones helps reduce decision fatigue. Once we commit to something, it’s easier to stick to that requiring less mental effort to follow through.

• Cognitive dissonance: When our actions contradict our beliefs or commitments, we experience cognitive dissonance – a mental discomfort that motivates us to bring things back into line. Following through on a commitment reduces this discomfort.

💡Here’s some hard evidence of this influence effect

An experiment showed how a small commitment greatly impacted compliance. A researcher asked a group of people if they would like to support neighborhood safety by including a huge and not-so-nice sign on their front yard promoting careful driving.

Unsurprisingly, only 17% of the people agreed. However, a similar sample of people in another neighborhood had a completely different behavior. A couple of weeks before the researcher asked them to put the big sign in their front yards, another person came over and asked them to put a small sign on their window saying “Be a safe driver”.

This small thing, this small commitment, led to a massive increase in compliance. 76% of this group accepted to include the big, ugly sign in their front yard. All because they wanted to stay consistent with their previous decision and they saw themselves as people who wanted to promote careful driving. All in all, compliance increased by 347% thanks to this influence principle.

✅ How to apply this to your business

Free Trials & Samples: Offer free trials or samples to get your customers to experience your product. People are more likely to buy after investing time and effort (even something small). Why?

• The Sunk Cost Fallacy: We hate wasting something we've invested in, even if it was free. After spending time and effort trying your product (downloading software, setting up an account, using a sample), people might feel motivated to buy to justify their initial investment and stay consistent with themselves. They've already "put something in" and don't want it to go to waste.

• The Ownership Mentality: Free trials can create a sense of ownership and commitment. People get accustomed to having your product in their lives. This can be anything from setting up a profile to personalizing features. Letting go and switching to a competitor feels disruptive to their established routine.

Public Commitments: Encourage customers to share their positive experiences or goals related to your product publicly. This will create a sense of accountability and increase the likelihood of follow-through.

• Self-Perception: When people share positive experiences or goals related to your product publicly (social media posts, reviews), it becomes part of their self-image. They're more likely to follow through on those commitments to maintain a consistent and positive image and avoid appearing unreliable.

📖 Further information for you to dive deeper

• Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert B. Cialdini

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Thanks so much for reading,

Juan Diego

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