Cognitive dissonance - Sales Glossary - Upnify
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Cognitive dissonance


All people need to have coherence and consistency over time in the way they think, act and make decisions. If the person manages to keep consistent in their actions, thoughts and decisions, mental harmony is generated, otherwise a state of tension, discomfort or discomfort known as cognitive dissonance is produced.


You must take into account that your clients and prospects will always look for ways to alleviate this discomfort in order to match their behaviors, attitudes and thoughts with their past decisions or behaviors.


Your customers need to feel that they made a good decision to purchase your product or service to alleviate their cognitive dissonance, so they will look for justifications, opinions and evidence to support their decisions. This principle can be used to both persuade and retain the customer after the first purchase.


Example 1: Once we as salespeople get the prospect to sign or even sign a promise to buy, they are unlikely to subsequently cancel their order/quote, because they would be contradicting their previous behavior.


Example 2: When a customer acquires a product/service that does not meet his expectations, he will first try to justify his purchase and will look for evidence to support his decision. If he is still dissatisfied, he will return the product or stop renewing and become a very dissatisfied customer.



The Sales Glossary is a compendium of all the most commonly used terminology in sales strategy. Many of the concepts listed here are used when implementing a CRM system or a digital sales funnel, no matter if they are legacy systems or an online CRM. See also our blog that deals with sales techniques, marketing and sales culture.