Hate customer hesitation? Here’s how WHO convinces vaccination fence sitters

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about “vaccine hesitancy” lately. It’s a term used to describe a person’s reticence to get the COVID-19 vaccine because they feel uncertain or nervous. 

Hesitancy is impacting your business

While we’re talking about hesitancy right now because of the pandemic, it’s something that permeates nearly every function in every business. It’s your need to convince someone to do something now, and them baulking.

You want customers to click, read, buy, pay, or recommend; staff to take on a task, follow a policy, speak to a customer or think differently; and stakeholders to back your idea, contribute resources, or prioritise your project.

So why won’t they? 

The problem is we don’t tend to see it as hesitancy, we see it as obstinance or ignorance.

We write people off as either being difficult (“Sue just won’t budge. She’s so stuck in her ways”) or stupid (“Jim won’t listen to reason. He can’t see common sense”).

If we instead regard any delay in their agreement to proceed as hesitancy, it means we have the opportunity to change our approach and win them over.

How WHO tackles hesitancy

The World Health Organisation (WHO) talks about vaccine hesitancy comprising three elements: complacency, confidence, and convenience. We can use this 3 C’s model to tackle general hesitancy in your business.

The three C’s

1. Complacency

   People don’t see the need for the vaccine because they underestimate the threat or are occupied with other issues.

2. Convenience

   If the affordability, understandability or accessibility of vaccines is limited, people won’t proceed.

3. Confidence

   They don’t trust the vaccines, the system that delivers them or those in authority who have recommended them.

Complacency

If people don’t see a problem with their status quo – with how things are for them right now – they will be loath to do anything about it.

That means you need to dislodge their belief that staying as they are, is desirable.

How? I call it the Zorro Technique, where you guide staff or stakeholders through four questions.

The Zorro Technique is a bit trickier to use with customers, but all’s not lost.

If you can’t have a direct conversation with them around the four questions, you can certainly run it through in your own mind to get a sense of why they are being complacent. 

The Zorro technique

1. What are the benefits of staying the same? 

2. What are their concerns about staying the same?

3. What are their concerns about the change?

4. What are the benefits of the change?

Convenience

How easy are you making it for them to do business with you?

More importantly, how easy are you making it for them to decide to do business with you?

Oftentimes we overlook points of friction that become a barrier for those we are trying to influence. You might have the greatest product in the world, but if it’s too hard to even think about using, you won’t get traction.

Are you overwhelming them with information or options? (Even if they’ve asked for them).

Try to limit the choices they have to make between options. Three is a good number to deal with — more than that and they can get bamboozled.

Whenever you present your options, be sure to make the difference between them explicit. If all your options look equally wonderful, it makes it harder for them to choose.

Have you told them what happens once the decision is made? This is especially important when dealing with stakeholders or clients deciding whether or not to commit to a longer-term project. They’ll want to know where they are right now and what happens next.

A good idea is to create a sense of forward momentum, where instead of portraying them as being at point zero, you let them know they are already one or two steps into the project. The first couple of steps can be things like researching vendors and briefing you as a potential supplier. It will be harder for them to walk away from something they feel like they’ve already invested in 

Confidence

Confidence is all about trust. Trust in you, that you can and will deliver what you promise, and trust in themselves that they can take on whatever is being suggested.

As we’ve seen with vaccines, facts and rational argument are rarely sufficient to build confidence and overcome hesitancy.

In fact, coming on too strong and hammering people over the head with logic can have unintended results. People can deliberately do the opposite of what they’re being told to do as a way to preserve their sense of agency when they feel their choices are being limited, in what psychologists call ‘reactance‘.

The fastest way to build confidence is through consistency. Actions speak louder than words, so do what you say you’ll do, turn up and deliver on time, and keep them in the loop with your progress because transparency is a great way to build confidence. 

Where possible have others speak to your trustworthiness through testimonials, reviews and industry affiliations, and normalise the decision you’re asking them to take. The more they see other people trusting you, the more confident they’ll be in your hands.