I read an article over a year ago that looked at the Principle of Social Proof - An idea that we, as human beings, are influenced by the actions of others and follow the crowd.
The article looked at GP surgeries and the notice you may often see inside - "Last month 156 people did not keep their appointments" - It commented that this notice was using the influence of social proof in the wrong way. It was encouraging patients not to keep their appointments as this was common practice amongst other patients (think who would see this notice - yes, the patients who kept their appointments!)
The reason for this post is that between February and May this year the article above was turned into a full blown study at a number of Bedfordshire GP surgeries. The results of using 3 simple, low cost principles of influence reduced the number of patients not attending by over 30% - Wow! Impressive figures and a huge saving of GP's time and therefore cost to the NHS.
So what 3 simple things did they do? Firstly they used the Principle of Consistency and asked patients on the phone to repeat their appointment time and date back to the receptionist. If a patient was making an appointment in person the receptionist would ask the patient to fill out the appointment card with the relevant details.
Finally they changed the notice to enable the Principle of Social Proof to work for them eg "This month 95% of patients attended their appointments or called 01202 381990 if they have to cancel".
A couple of simple ways we use these principles
- when coaching we use the Principle of Consistency and ensure the Coachee writes their own action plan and summarises it back to us verbally.
- we use the Principle of Social Proof when bringing in new ideas to try and talk through a couple of situations where the idea has worked for other organisations/departments/individuals.
So what does this mean for you? How could you employ the principles of influence to work for your organisation? And if you've not read it already, Cialdini's book 'Influence' is highly recommended.
Mark
Guardian article on the study - http://www.guardian.co.uk/healthcare-network/2011/jul/28/nhs-bedfordshire-study-appointment-keeping
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