The door-in-the-face technique is the opposite of the foot-in-the-door technique. It consists of first making a high commitment request, which is highly likely to be rejected, and then making a lower commitment request, which is actually the action you want your prospect to take.
As your customer feels that you lower the level of commitment, he is more willing to agree to the second request and will be less likely to reject it.
Example: When you tell a customer that in order to access a promotion or discount, he must first provide contact information and references, but if he does not accept, you offer it only with his data.
It is necessary to use this technique with more caution than the foot in the door, because it can have the opposite effect with very reflexive customers.
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.