You probably have heard of social proof. It’s used widely these days. A great example that everyone knows are reviews on the internet. Previous guests and users writing about their experiences, with or without giving notes can be a great pointer for future guests and customers. Specially with more expensive purchases people tend to read reviews before making a purchase decision.
But next to the marketing possibilities and convincing people how great your business is. There is another great application for the social proof technique. And that is in influencing guest behavior. It might be the answer to the question: How to let your guest use less towels? In most hotels these days you will find a sign, sticker or note asking people to re-use their towels. A great initiative trying to lower the towel usage in hotels. But here the question arrises how effective are these messages in their current form.
In most hotels you will see messages asking: “Please re-use towels”, “Please help save resources” or “Save our planet”. You probably have seen these signs more than once in different forms. If you are looking to boost the re-usage of towels you should consider using social proof here as well.
Well known marketing & psychology professor, Dr. Robert Cialdini, showed in his research how effective this form of social proof can be. He tested different message to see the influence on towel usage.
The best working message:
“JOIN YOUR FELLOW GUESTS IN HELPING TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT
Almost 75% of guests who are asked to participate in our new resource savings program do help by using their towels more than once. You can join your fellow guests to help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay”
As you can see this message incorporates a social prove by showing how many people re-use their towels in the particular hotel. If you don’t have any numbers or negative numbers, you can still use social proof. Write along the lines of “Most guests in this room use their towels more than once” or “Join your fellow guests in saving the environment and re-use your towels.”. By pointing out the guests in this particular room and/or the fellow guests you make sure their is a social proof in the message that you send your guests.
Avoiding negative numbers
You might ask: what do you mean by negative numbers. Well making use of numbers can be useful but only if the numbers are positive. Don’t fall into the trap of writing negative social proof. If you find out that only 30% of the guests in your hotel re-uses their towels. Don’t write the number down in a statement. Social proof leads to people confirming to what most people do. 30% re-using towels also means 70% isn’t doing it, that means people will argue that it’s normal to only use a towel once.
Other posible applications
Let’s figure out how social proof can be used to improve guest behavior in hospitality business that are not hotels. I gave it some thought and came up with a few examples to help you get started with your own ideas.
In a hostel setting: a lot of hostels around the world have community kitchens for the guests to use. Would a message saying: “90% of the guests leave the kitchen clean and tidy after usage!” help? Or alternatively a longer message:
Heading: “Join your fellow hostel guests in helping to keep this kitchen clean.”
Message: “Almost 90% of the guests making use of this kitchen leave it clean and tidy after use. Join them in making sure you keep the kitchen clean.”
You can apply this to camping kitchens, ablutions blocks in safari camps and every place where guests make use of shared facilities.
In my deliberations about this I figured this should be tested in the outdoor space as well. A lot of times you will see signs about not leaving any trash on a hiking trail. What if the statements here would be adapted with social proof. Would more people take their trash?
Or can we take it one step further and find the right words to influence people to take the trash of others that were there before them? It would be an interesting experiment for sure.
How to let your guest use less towels? I hope you have gotten a direction for the answer. Will you be putting it to the test? Or can you think of other applications in the Tourism industry?
Feel free to let me know!
Sources:
R. Cialdini (2005), Don’t throw in the Towel: Use Social Influence Research
R. Cialdini (2007), Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion
R. Shotton (2018), The choice factory