In marketing, what you say is just as important as when you say it

By Will Novosedlik

Companies spend over a trillion dollars a year on sales and customer service alone, making it the single largest strategic investment for most firms, nearly tripling what they spend on other marketing communications. These costs are rising due to technology and channel complexity. So getting the use of language right in sales or service interactions can ultimately make a significant difference to both the top and bottom line.

This point was made in a newly published article in the Journal of Consumer Research entitled When Language Matters by Grant Packard, associate professor of marketing at York University’s Schulich School of Business; Jonah Berger, professor of marketing at the Wharton School; and Yang Li, associate professor of marketing at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing.

The literature on how to use language to boost the effectiveness of sales and service interactions, as well as marketing communications, is massive. But historically, it has been focused on “what” to say. This new research by Packard and his associates reveals that it’s not just what you say that matters, but when you say it.

Previous research suggests that in the typical back-and-forth of a customer service or sales conversation, asking questions, using first-person pronouns or speaking in a rational, competent manner can improve customer satisfaction. But the authors of this new research ask the question: does one take that approach throughout the entire exchange, from beginning to end? Or should the type of language you use vary at different points in the conversation?

Packard and his fellow researchers based their study on the use of two types of language: “warm” (affective) and “competent” (cognitive). Warmth is communicated through affective expression and attention to emotion, while competence is about agency, rationality, and cognitive efficiency. Prior research suggests that an affective speaking approach tends to make customers think that employees are less competent, while cognitive language tends to make people seem less warm, recommending that they should take one approach or the other, but not both.

Packard’s team disagrees. Using a multi-method approach which included analysis of hundreds of real service conversations from two firms across thousands of conversational moments, and four experiments, Packard and his colleagues demonstrated that customers are more satisfied (and spent more money) when you use both cognitive and affective language – but at different points in the conversation.

It is therefore important to know when to change things up as the conversation unfolds. The research results indicate, for instance, that at the beginning or the end of the conversation, warm language (e.g., “How are you today?”) rather than competent language (“How may I assist you today?”) works best, but in the middle of the conversation, when it’s time to discuss the customer’s problem, warm and fuzzy doesn’t cut it. It’s time to switch to a more cognitive language.

Despite that, a belief in prioritizing cognitive over affective language is still strong among many researchers. In service interactions, for instance, the logic is that customers have a problem that needs solving, so they need to believe that the service provider has the cognitive skills and experience to solve it. When Packard and his collaborators asked 160 customer service managers and workers about the most important service priority, 80.8% indicated “competently addressing the customer’s needs” versus “warmly relating to the customer.” This was reflected in their companies’ training priorities, with 76.1% indicating a bias towards competence, while only 21.3% indicated that their company trains employees to be both competent and warm.

Prior research cited in the Packard study has found that warm behaviours such as relationship-building, empathy or apology can be useful before dealing with the customer’s problem, so starting the conversation with a cognitive opener like “How may I assist you” is less effective because it goes straight to the problem without establishing that important relational base.

At some point, though, the employee does need to know when to move on to a more analytical, cognitive communication style so that the problem can actually be dealt with. As with the beginning of the conversation, the end will benefit from more affective language. Statements like “Glad we could solve that problem for you. Hope the rest of your day goes well” reinforce the relationship and contribute to customer loyalty.

Ultimately, the study suggests, knowing when to speak and not just what to say not only contributes to customer satisfaction but also purchase behaviour and willingness to recommend.