Whose comments would you find more trustworthy if you were going to try out a new restaurant? An ad from the restaurant saying, “We have the best shakes in town,” or a friend who said, “We ate there last week and that was the best steak in town.” My hunch is you’d put more trust in your friend. After all, we know marketing always puts on its best face, which is why we tend to take any positive thing a business or salesperson says with a dose of skepticism. But how about if the message from the restaurant was, “To be honest, our seafood is only so-so, but we like to think we have the best steaks in town.” The odds are you’d be more inclined to believe the message and also to have a more favorable opinion about the restaurant. Facts that would help prove that a restaurant really is good, like if they were using the very best restaurant equipment from somewhere like Nella Online, for example, don’t normally make it into marketing campaigns because the average customer wouldn’t understand them. This is why we are reliant on the opinions of either the restaurant or friends who have experienced it for themselves. In fact, if your friend had instead said about the restaurant, “God bless them, the decor wasn’t great, but that was the best steak I’ve had in this town,” you’d be even more inclined to find your friend’s comment trustworthy.
Tempering a negative criticism with a qualifying phrase is called “discourse markers of dispreferred responses”-dispreferred marker for short. The markers don’t alter the negative message, but they show that the commenter understands the hurt the negative remark may cause. By tempering the statement the commenter is seen as more likable and more credible. This has strong implications for agents and brokers.
Mentioning a small negative in combination with a positive point may make the agent more credible and likable. It could be along the lines of “I have to say upfront that this premium isn’t the lowest out there, but this insurer’s financial strength is exceptional” or “To be blunt, there are other annuity carriers with better service, but this annuity pays a higher interest rate.” Preemptive admission of a fault by the agent changes the dynamic of the buying process because it is unexpected. After this admission, further agent statements will be viewed as more believable.
This can be incorporated into broader marketing messages. Ad copy saying “We may not be all things to all people, but by golly we bust our hump to get the people of [your town] the best Medicare supplement coverage for their pocketbook” or “Sorry we don’t have offices across the country, but we have good parking at our health insurance office on Main Street (and we even make free house calls)” identifies what your specialty is and makes you sound friendly and credible because you recognize your limitations.
This article was inspired by the study mentioned below that caused me to do even more research on the topic. It does appear that opening a presentation with a negative comment about your product or service in tandem with a positive one makes everything said after that more believable, and if you temper the negative comment with a dispreferred marker (e.g., to be honest, I hate to say this, etc.) it makes you more likable and more likely to get the sale.
Hamilton, R., K. Vohs & A. McGill. (2014) We’ll be honest, This won’t be the best article you’ll ever read: The use of dispreferred markers in word-of-mouth communication. Journal of Consumer Research, 41, 1 p. 197-212.
