To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others

by Daniel H. Pink

Other research demonstrates mimicry’s effectiveness. For example, a Dutch study found that waitresses who repeated diners’ orders word for word earned 70 percent more tips than those who paraphrased orders—and that customers with servers who mimicked were more satisfied with their dining experience.15 In a French study of retail salespeople, half of the store clerks were instructed to mimic the expressions and nonverbal behavior of their customers and half were not. When customers approached the salespeople for help, nearly 79 percent bought from mimickers compared with about 62 percent from non-mimickers. In addition, those who dealt with the mimickers reported “more positive evaluations of both the sales clerk and the store.”16 A Duke University experiment in which an interviewer presented what purported to be a new sport drink found that when people were subtly mimicked, they were more likely to say they would buy the drink and to predict that it would be a success.