Customer reception: does the first amount shape the estimate?
At reception, a visitor may mention a price paid elsewhere, an old rate or an anticipated budget for a service. The management question is specific: how can staff avoid letting this first amount shape their estimate before examining the relevant information?
What the literature establishes
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (1974, Science) describe anchoring: an initial value can influence a numerical estimate even when it provides no relevant information. In the situations studied, estimates remained influenced by their starting point. For reception staff, this suggests distinguishing an amount merely heard from information actually needed for the calculation.
Expertise does not necessarily remove anchoring
Gregory B. Northcraft and Margaret A. Neale (1987, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes) studied property valuations by varying the listing price in the information supplied. Both professionals’ and amateurs’ estimates were influenced by that price. Experience and information about the property were therefore insufficient to make judgments independent of the proposed amount.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that figures should never be mentioned at the beginning of a conversation. That would confuse a potentially misleading starting point with useful information: an applicable rate or a genuine budget ceiling may be essential for directing the enquiry. The task is instead to establish what the figure represents, rather than automatically treating it as a basis for calculation. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence does not establish
These studies do not directly measure pricing errors at reception desks in Sion. Nor do they demonstrate that an instruction to remain vigilant is enough to neutralise anchoring. A departure from the first amount mentioned is not, in itself, evidence of quality: the relevant benchmark remains the rate or calculation method applicable to the case.
A practical check in Sion
Within SHR — Swiss Human Resources’ « Accueil client » programme, an exercise in Sion could use fictional cases involving hydropower, healthcare, viticulture and alpine tourism, each with a verifiable pricing rule. Randomly assigning participants to otherwise identical versions that differ only in an initial, non-binding amount would allow their estimates to be compared against a common benchmark. The measure would be the absolute difference between each estimate and the amount calculated under that rule, supplemented by the proportion of answers citing the correct pricing source. A second set of new cases, requiring source verification before calculation, would allow an assessment of whether this procedure reduces discrepancies, without presenting the exercise as proof of effectiveness in real service settings. To go further: explore the Client Reception training in Sion in the canton of Valais, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Client Reception in Sion
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