There's a species of firefly that appears to be a remarkably successful persuader. By copying a unique flashing routine that other species use to signal to potential mates that they are ready to breed, it is able to attract other fireflies. However, far from flying into love's embrace the unsuspecting fireflies find themselves in immediate peril as they realise that their most feared enemy has in fact played a rather deadly trick on them.
The persuasion technique being used here is called mimicry. A mimic's strategy is to deliberately arrange to appear similar to another organism or its surroundings in order to either defend itself or, in the case of the Photuris firefly, to attack. There's no doubt that mimicry can be a pretty effective strategy in the animal kingdom. But surely such an approach wouldn't work in the business world — after all, humans are much more sophisticated, aren't they? Maybe not.
In a surprising series of studies persuasion researchers found that waiters and waitresses who mimic their customers by simply repeating back their orders using exactly the same words are not only more liked, but actually receive bigger tips too. In one study, waiters employing this strategy increased their tips by 70 per cent, a pretty impressive return considering that all they did was to listen to their customers and repeat back their words.
So what makes mimicry such an effective persuasive tool? Psychologists believe one reason is that it increases a person's sense of closeness and understanding with another. Anyone who has ever heard a half-hearted "OK" after giving their restaurant order will understand this. Something similar occurs when, after giving your phone number to someone, they repeat it back to you in a way that's different to how you remember it. Suddenly your phone number doesn't sound like yours and a distancing from that person might occur.
The mimicry studies suggest that, when meeting people for the first time, you can develop relationships in a quicker time by repeating back the same words that they use. In fact evidence suggests that such a strategy should be effective regardless of the situation.
Even if you are dealing with customer complaints, the mimicry technique should prove quite effective providing you use it selectively and avoid copying accents.
Steve Martin is co-author of Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion
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