Customers are always in the “sight” of manipulation

Chances are, you have not known about this story yet. It was a trade secret, which traveled with the Jewish people from Israel to Vietnam. Therefore, a business using this secret has brought in revenue of more than 1,000 billion VND/year. Something that is hard to imagine.

One fine day, the customer received a call inviting him to experience a beauty service for free. After the business dropped the “anchor” on their brand and created the psychology of benefits, many VIP customers nodded for a new experience.

After dropping an “anchor” on their brand and creating an illusion of benefits, businesses are largely successful in persuading VIP customers to experience their service and products.

Customers are enthusiastically welcomed, brought into a private space to enjoy the service. During such a process, the technicians both perform their work and cleverly encourage customers to share their thoughts and views about life, work, even sometimes their secrets…

In a one-on-one conversation, people easily open up and confide in many things. But customers will not know that their entire communication process has been observed, listened to and analyzed by a team leader through a camouflaged camera.

As soon as the technician completes the customer care process and leaves, the team leader now appears as if by coincidence with the purpose of “surveying emotions and experiences” of customers. In fact, the “close the sale” takes place at this moment, when the customer has no psychological precautions, which makes it easy for them to sign a contract with the service provider.

In essence, customers have become “prey” of the business since the moment they answered  the phone call from the Tele Marketing department. When they visit, manipulation tactics by the sales staff have already been in process without the customer’s awareness.

Identify customer characteristics, which group are you in?

D.I.S.C was developed in 1928. It is a method of determining an individual’s personality, capturing human psychology, and is effectively applied in business. According to this theory, human personality is a combination of 4 personality types including: D (Dominance), I (Influence), S (Steadiness), C  (Compliance).

Group D – Dominance: People in this group tend to have a quick, energetic, strong, confident, proactive, focused, dynamic, result-oriented personality. A Dominant person often acts,walks quickly and is talkative, especially regarding their topics of interest or information relating to themselves. Their face turns red when expressing aggressive emotions, hands aictions are always rigid and rapid,

Group I – Influencers: Enthusiastic, sociable, cheerful, gentle, optimistic, adventurous, creative, people-oriented. This person has an advanced ability to persuade, likes to talk and enjoys humor. They are funny, dynamic, creative, and progress towards their goals at high speed but not in a linear line, as they are interested and like to experience new things.

Group S – Steadiness: Calm, slow, steady, mature, consistent, strategically observant, reliable, dedicated, responsible, caring for people. This person usually doesn’t talk much, speaks quietly, is hesitant towards risks, dislikes crowds, likes to listen,confide, or cares for others.

Group C – Compliance: Accurate, calm, perfectionist, orderly, correct, focused, fair, clear, cautious, logical, technical. This person rarely speaks, speaks slowly. The are sometimes difficult to understand due to poor self-expression. Nevertheless, they are concise, neat, like to be organized, and work in an organized manner, logical.

How can D.I.S.C be applied in elevator sales?

Relying on appearance to judge personality insufficient , an additional method that is often applied in the business world is “touch and go”. It is using the information analysis method 5W1H (Who, Where, When, What, Why, How).

Research shows that each personality group has their own favorite survey question to gain information, which they consider useful.

Group D: Favorite question “What”

Group I: Favorite question “Who”

Group S: Favorite question “How”

Group C: Favorite question “Why”

Combining the information of the two methods of D.I.S.C and 5W1H, sales staff will be able to recognize an outline of their customers’ personality, based on which they can tailor their psychological manipulation strategy towards such customers..

Personality type D – Dominance: An appropriate psychological manipulation method that salespeople can apply on this personality type is to always shower them with an abundance of compliments, thus making them feel as if they are number one. Customers also appreciated the ability to make their own decisions such as choosing between products. However, in fact, they might not be aware that their choices are “just within the limit”. Therefore, if they belong to this personality group, customers should ask questions about solutions to solve their needs. If they require a solution for a narrow elevator installation space, without PIT, then hydraulic elevators will be what they are looking for, instead of being indecisive between various types of product.

Personality Type I – Influencers: this type of customers are usually open-minded, they like to talk but will not focus on the detail. In this case, salespeople should present  them with the big picture, including  a lot of intriguing information before going into details. Or, give them the opportunity to share ideas, maintain a warm, amicable relationship. Even going as far as agreeing with the customer’s choice of product to “close the sale”.

If they belong to this personality group, customers’ decisions  maybe more emotionally-driven rather than based on actual functions and important features of elevator products. Many elevator lines are branded joint ventures with a sleek appearance, but information regarding  their quality and safety are vague. It is even more dangerous when the elevators are faked, from brand logos, CO, CQ documents, to equipment components. Such status quo has made many customers half laughing half crying  when they placed too much credibility on the suppliers and followed their emotions in deciding which elevator to buy.

Personality group S – Steadiness:

With this group of customers, businesses will often make commitments to ensure that they do not bring risks to themselves. When approached, the sales staff will actively give personal opinions and specific information about the product. A sincere attitude is the way that customers in this group are most likely to be “manipulated” before deciding to purchase a product. However, the disadvantage of the Steady group of customers is that they are quite conservative and passive when interacting with the information provided by the elevator sales staff. They are susceptible to tricks like the “manipulation” effect.

When customers are faced with two choices, they will hesitate to make a decision. For the majority of ordinary customers, they tend to choose the most cost-effective option. This means that it will be difficult for businesses to sell high-priced products. However, when there is a third option with an insignificant price difference, customers will not hesitate to choose this high priced option. Therefore, if you belong to the S personality group, the features,the demands, and the suitability should be kept in mind as guidance when choosing to buy an elevator.

Personality group C – Compliance: With this elevator customer group, salespeople are forced to arrange their sales pitch   logically, maintain focus on the topic, precisely provide facts and figures on elevator product lines for customers to understand. Careless service and lack of meticulousness in work will not be accepted. Sales staff also often need to spend a majority of their time listening, even preparing carefully to answer critical issues raised by customers. Persistence, delicate pursuit is what businesses need for this special personality group. However, this very method of pursuit can be exploited to give psychologically manipulated customers a feeling of indebtedness. Therefore, sometimes customers choose to buy an elevator from a distributor to “pay off debt” before realizing the product’s incompatibility with their home and demands.

Do you think you have been “psychologically manipulated” by looking at this photo?

In essence, “psychological manipulation” is a negative term referring to when coercive intervention is utilized to control an individual’s psychology, leading to changes in their decision-making behaviors. In a broader sense, this term has crept into every corner of our social life.

Understanding psychological manipulation helps businesses in exploiting their strength to  bring the right value that customers demand. On the other hand, customers also need to understand such camouflaged methods of manipulation  to stay aware of their own problems and demands when choosing the right elevator solution.

Thus, constructing greater symmetry of information between the customers and businesses, and creating a transparent market mechanism, promoting the development of the economy and society.