Customer reception: turning an intention into a next action
In Basel, welcoming a pharmaceutical partner, a Rhine logistics client or an international R&D team may lead to an administrative step that must be completed after the conversation. The management question is specific: does helping someone decide when to act improve completion beyond what clear instructions alone achieve?
What the literature establishes
Peter M. Gollwitzer (1999, American Psychologist) distinguishes an intention to pursue a goal from an implementation intention: linking a specific situation to a defined action. His review describes how a plan such as “when this situation arises, I will do this” can help translate intention into action. For reception teams, the hypothesis is therefore not to repeat instructions more often, but to help identify a concrete opportunity to act on them.
A field test of moving into action
Katherine L. Milkman, John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian (2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) tested prompts to plan an influenza vaccination in a randomised field experiment. Encouraging people to write down a date and time increased vaccination uptake relative to the control group. The finding concerns completed behaviour, rather than merely a stated intention.
The premature conclusion
It would be tempting to conclude that every reception interaction should end with a dated commitment from the client. The research supports neither this generalisation nor persistent prompting: planning assumes that the action is wanted and sufficiently within the person's control. A partner awaiting regulatory approval or an internal decision may not have that discretion. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot promise
A review of self-regulation and an experiment on vaccination do not establish that this practice will work in reception settings at Basel businesses. A professional procedure may depend on several people, IT access or information that is not yet available. Measuring only stated commitments would conceal these obstacles and confuse verbal cooperation with actual completion.
A practical check in Basel
Within SHR's “Accueil client” programme, an exercise could prepare reception teams at a Basel life sciences or Rhine logistics site to offer visitors the option of choosing a concrete time to complete a pre-visit formality. For the same non-critical formality, randomly allocate eligible interactions to either the usual instructions or those instructions supplemented by “When could you do this?”. Then compare the proportion of complete files received before the stated deadline, keeping deadlines and reminders identical across both groups. Existing administrative records would allow the outcome to be checked without recording the personal content of anyone's plan. To go further: explore the Client Reception training in Basel in the canton of Basel-Stadt, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Client Reception in Basel
- client reception
- Basel
- research
- training basel