The new paper shows that consumers experience social discomfort when singled out for spontaneous special treatment, which may cause them to close their wallets<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cManagerial wisdom guiding service and retail industries assumes that consumers get an uptick in esteem when they\u2019re allowed to skip a queue or get an upgrade,\u201d says Assistant Professor JoAndrea Hoegg, a co-author of the forthcoming study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research<\/em>. \u201cBut our research shows that when people get unearned freebies in front of others they experience a social awkwardness that makes them less inclined to consume<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n In one of a series of experiments, researchers treated participants at a product booth in two different ways. One group received free personal care products in return for \u201ccustomer loyalty\u201d and another received free products with no explanation. Some bonus transactions were witnessed, and some were private.<\/p>\n Results show that when the free samples were received with no explanation in front of observers, participants were less satisfied with them<\/strong>. The research also shows that the decline in satisfaction was driven by feelings of social discomfort, and that those who received extra samples without reason browsed for a shorter time at the booth.<\/p>\n \u201cOur research suggests that if a firm is randomly selecting people to receive perks, they should make sure they receive them in private. If doing it in public, it\u2019s best that everyone knows the customer earned the upgrade to avoid unwanted embarrassment<\/strong>,\u201d says Hoegg.<\/p>\n The study, Consumer Reaction to Unearned Preferential Treatment<\/em>, was co-authored by Assistant Professor Hoegg and Professor Darren Dahl from the Sauder School of Business, and Assistant Professor Lan Jiang from the University of Oregon.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the UBC press release via HealthCanal: New research from UBC\u2019s Sauder School of Business reveals that giving a free bump in service can backfire for retailers if the perk… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8],"tags":[96,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13581"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14098,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13581\/revisions\/14098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"shopping\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Shopping3.jpg\")
New research from UBC\u2019s Sauder School of Business reveals that giving a free bump in service can backfire for retailers if the perk is given randomly in front of others<\/strong>.<\/p>\n