Posted 4/16/23
The concept of conditioning is typically taught early when learning about psychology. It basically involves adapting and shaping behavior. Here is one example; just before you give a treat to a dog, you ring a bell. This is repeated several times, the bell is rung and then the treat is given. Eventually when the bell is rung, the dog anticipates the treat and begins to salivate without receiving it. Salivating to the sound of the bell is the conditioned behavior because ordinarily a ringing bell alone will not make a dog salivate.
When it comes to fundraising or sales, conditioning can happen whether intentional or not. Here are a couple of examples that I have experienced. I worked a part-time job at a national department store as a retail sales representative. During my tenure, the organization used coupons to attract customers, as coupons helped the customer save money on particular items. If the customer bought additional items without a coupon, or at the regular price, they often ended up paying more. After awhile, a new CEO thought it would be better to eliminate the coupons and just maintain low prices on everything. From my perspective, it seemed as though the prices across the board were lower in general, however I cannot count how many times a customer would stop me and ask how come there are no more coupons? Customers were conditioned to expect coupons in the mail, and learned to shop that way, even if the gross purchase was at a higher price. It was a difficult behavior change to move away from coupons.
In fundraising, I walked into more than one organization where “hounding” was the accepted means of raising funds. Hounding meaning contacting over and over (leaving messages or multiple e-mails) until you received a response from the prospect or donor. The problem was that the prospect became conditioned to expect multiple contacts, and as a result, was often in no hurry to respond because he/she learned there were going to be more contacts to come. Now this can be an acceptable technique to choose by the fundraiser, especially in a new position, but the conditioned behavior makes it difficult to contact prospects as they have learned that they do not need to respond, as they can expect additional attempts. The other question is how much time is the fundraiser taking to make multiple calls and e-mails to the same prospects? Hopefully the avoidant customer behavior will eventually diminish but that can take significant time. The conditioning can create an unanticipated behavior that can be a problem. Sometimes the new fundraiser is forced to adopt this same strategy, making the donor behavior even more difficult to change.
In my experience, this is something to watch out for when introducing new strategies or starting a new position. It can be helpful to anticipate potential long-term behavioral effects prior to implementation of new strategies in order to save the time and money undoing the conditioned behavior down the road. Every organization is different and needs to evaluate the cost of conditioning. If changing positions / organizations, you may need to be ready to undo established conditions if seen as problematic. Know that it will take time.
(Photo by Bethany Ferr – www.pexels.com)