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Summary: A study was done many years ago demonstrating that people respond in positive and unexpected ways to attention.

There was a famous productivity study that started in 1924 and continued for several years at the Western Electric Company in Cicero, Illinois. Industrial engineers wanted to know how different light levels would affect workers’ output at this telephone equipment factory. When I was first introduced to this study I immediately thought that it sounded like one of those infamous studies funded by the federal government whose findings would be predictable to just about everyone. Wouldn’t you think that more light would equal more productivity? It wasn’t that simple.

The results showed that increased light levels in the factory did in fact increase the workers’ output. No surprise there. But what I’m about to tell you is why this study is well known more than 80 years later. When they decreased the light levels, productivity levels continued to increase. Can’t you just see those industrial engineers with their white coats and thick glasses scratching their collective head? They started experimenting with different scenarios and found that no matter what they did with the light levels, productivity increased each time. They even took levels down to almost black out and, you guessed it, productivity levels continued to increase.

What’s the explanation? The smart folks figured out that it was the attention that the factory workers were getting that made the difference, not the light levels. The fact that a whole brigade of industrial engineers were watching and studying them made them feel important and part of the team. They responded by working harder and harder.

The analogy to our relationship with our customers is obvious. Customers like getting attention from you; it builds the relationship because it makes them feel important, just like the workers at the Western Electric factory. I have seen this in practice a thousand times when a new salesperson takes over an existing account base. All the love and attention showered on those customers by the new salesperson makes customers respond with increased purchases. The Hawthorne Effect even suggests that if we are nurturing the relationship with our customers that we can make a few missteps without being sent to the principal’s office. Never take your relationship with the customer for granted; stay in constant contact.

I want to conclude this post with a note to sales management. You guessed it; pay attention to your sales force too, for all the same reasons.

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