A study by Howard (1990) proposed a compliance technique built on a social routine. We tested a technique based on an alternative routine. Our hypothesis was that asking people about their availability before making a request would result in increased compliance. A group of 1,791 participants were asked to answer a questionnaire by phone for a consumer survey. The results showed that compliance rates were higher when the requester inquired about respondents’ availability and waited for a response than when he pursued his set speech without waiting and inquiring about respondents’ availability. The results are discussed based on 2 complementary consistency mechanisms (Aune & Basil, 1994; Tedeschi, Schlenker, & Bonoma, 1971).
Source: “I Hope I’m Not Disturbing You, Am I?” Another Operationalization of the Foot-in-the-Mouth Paradigm” from Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Volume 41, Issue 4, pages 965–975, April 2011
Related posts:
7 of the most powerful persuasion techniques by expert Robert Cialdini (Video)
How to easily be more credible when complaining
Should you kiss ass if you’re not good at it?
97 
982 
4944