The neuroscience of rapport: do's and don'ts for virtual sellers

Is there a way to maintain our humanity in the age of algorithms? This question will become more frequent as AI is advancing. One answer in favor of humanity is the ability to build rapport with other humans, such as customers.

A comfortable customer is a good customer.

But how do we build rapport in a remote setting, which is still the prevalent way of meeting with prospects and clients??To answer the question, especially from a science perspective, let's first consider some definitions. Rapport has been defined as “a harmonious relationship in which people understand each other's feelings or ideas and communicate well.” Business professionals also use the phrase “building rapport,” which has been described as “developing mutual trust, friendship and affinity with someone.”

With these definitions in mind, here are some practical considerations from our neuroscience studies with B2B buyers. I’ve selected these guidelines from our body of work based on variables that map to the definitions above and also because neuroscience gives us an undiluted preview into implicit reactions from the brain and body. For example, to build rapport, you definitely need:???

1. Positive valance.?This means the buyer likes the experience and finds it “harmonious,” as the definition of rapport states.
2. Brain synchronization.?This means that buyers are engaging with the content in the same way and have shared understanding of the content. This dimension is important because it relates to the “understand each other” part of the definition of rapport.
3. Motivation.?Rapport implies that people “communicate well,” and optimal communication implies that the brain is willing to continue processing a stimulus. This variable is important because rapport is built across time.?
4. Trust. It’s impossible to build rapport unless you have trust and we have made progress in neuroscience to measure it.

We compute these variables by looking at buyers’ EEG (electroencephalogram) and ECG (electrocardiogram) signals and avoid self-reports because they are not always reliable. Let’s look at some contexts that have reflected the variables above.?

What puts buyers in a good mood?

If rapport implies having a harmonious relationship, and we are discussing virtual sales contexts, a?disabled chat box?during a virtual sales call will get you there. Yes, that’s right, eliminate the back channel and you put buyers in a better mood. Here is how we know. During a neuroscience study I conducted, one group of buyers viewed a sales presentation about the merits of a tech solution, and the chat box was inactive during that presentation. Another group viewed the same presentation, but with an active chat box, which displayed various chat entries. According to a pilot test we completed prior to the neuroscience study, the most typical uses of the chat during a sales call are:?

1.?????Sharing a related comment (RC)

2.?????Sharing a related link (RL)

3.?????Sharing an unrelated comment (UC)

4.?????Asking questions (AQ for when questions are answered and UQ for when they go unanswered)

We noted statistically significant differences in valence, with people in the Chat box Off condition being in a more content mood. If you can't help it and the chat box is enabled, and used for the purposes outlined above, what also puts buyers in a good mood is a question that is immediately answered.?The chart below shows the aggregated EEG and ECG signals of participants as they viewed the various chat entries.

What else puts buyers in a good mood??

In one neuroscience study, we asked what happens to customers’ emotions and mood when a seller decides to split the presentation with someone else. This often happens in tech sales when an account manager brings in a solutions engineer to explain a complex portion of a solution. Our findings show that even when both presenters have optimal presentation skills, customers do not enjoy a split presentation, especially when the solution is being presented (compared to a general introduction to the presentation).?

In light of these findings, consider learning how to deliver a sales presentation on your own, at least for the introductory call, and then bring in the experts.?This approach will get you closer to better rapport during the initial call and advancing the customer relationship.

Speaking of an introductory sales call, a surprising finding for me was that buyers are in a better mood when the initial high-level overview of a solution is delivered virtually, compared to face-to-face, over the phone or hybrid. Here are a few other nuances around this finding, which combine mood with brain synchronization for even stronger rapport.?

What enables buyers’ brains to synchronize?

In our research, we look to see if buyers’ brains are literally on the same wavelength because inter-brain synchronization has been linked to better collaboration, cooperation and shared understanding. While we calculate brain synchronization between buyers (not buyer-seller) because it's important for them to have rapport among each other. This is critical because, in large organizations, decisions are rarely individual, they are mostly collective. So, the more people "understand each other," as the definition of rapport states, the more chances you have they will sell and act on your behalf when you're no longer with them.

In a neuroscience study I conducted just as the pandemic was winding down, I researched which modality buyers tended to prefer more for a high-level overview of a tech solution. Our bet was of course on the face-to-face modality, especially after a lock-down. That was not the case. Buyers were happiest in the virtual condition and most anxious, even upset in the hybrid condition.?

The intriguing part was that buyers’ brains synchronized best during?any?combination that involved a fully virtual delivery, even over the phone. The hybrid modality, which involved one buyer being in the same room with the presenter and one buyer joining via Zoom, did not lead to optimal brain synchronization.

So, for better rapport, avoid hybrid interactions as buyers in a larger group do not have a comparable experience.?Keep in mind that the more people's brains synchronize and they experience the information in a similar way, the more likely that they will reach a unified decision.

In other neuroscience research I’ve completed, I've also observed optimal brain synchronization when sellers present complex content and don't dumb it down. Using this finding and considering that synchronized brains are more likely to have rapport, it’s advisable to ditch the popular adage “simplify complexity.”

But doesn’t complexity overwhelm people? Can it really keep them motivated and engaged in the conversation to build rapport? Read on.

What keeps buyers motivated?

One way to handle complex content is to disseminate it in a whiteboard format. This is because a whiteboard displays a lot of movement and cognition depends on movement; in addition, elements that are essential to the story stay on the page for a long time, which means they can be encoded better, and people can build a better mental model of a concept because the elements are part of a visible whole vs. fragmented across a sequence of slides. In one neuroscience study I conducted, B2B buyers were part of a sales presentation where the presenter was whiteboarding the merits of a tech platform. In one condition, buyers watched the presentation passively and in another, they drew along with the presenter. Participants who were drawing along with the presenter showed higher levels of motivation to act on the information compared to the passive group, and those differences were statistically significant.?

So, next time you have a choice and if your information renders itself to this format, consider presenting content on a whiteboard instead of using a sequence of individual slides.

Another way to consider what motivates buyers to stay engaged with you and your content is to analyze their approach vs. withdrawal behavior.??What convinces buyers to lean in, literally, especially as they attend a sales presentation virtually? In a remote environment, sellers have been aiming to build rapport and compensating for physical proximity by sharing their camera.?

Not everyone is a “camera on” believer. Opponents insist that turning the camera on can be taxing and stressful. The world has witnessed the occasional broadcasted bathroom break, along with pantless presentations...and, beyond these accidents, the "camera on" state has been associated with heavier cognitive workload, increased self-evaluation, and constraints on physical mobility.?

In our neuroscience study, we did not find any statistically significant differences in how much buyers liked the camera being on vs. off. We also did not find any statistically significant differences in cognitive variables such as attention, working memory, fatigue, and motivation. Qualitatively however, we did note that turning the camera on leads to approach behavior, meaning buyers want to lean into the stimulus vs. wishing to withdraw. Anecdotally, we knew that when sellers expect to be on camera, they take the call more seriously and prepare better. All these aspects can be tied to the notion of rapport. And the neuroscience observations in terms of approach vs. withdrawal behavior are now definitely starting to tip the scale in favor of the camera on.?

In the same study, we also analyzed individual sections of the sales presentation, which included a brief Introduction, Trends in the industry, Solution and a Follow Up, in which the buyer asked for another meeting. In terms of affective and cognitive variables, the Camera Off invited mood swings. The Camera On condition showed mood stability and a decrease in fatigue. This could be happening because reading someone's lips helps with comprehension. Since “communicating well” is part of the definition of rapport, I definitely recommend the Camera On condition during remote selling.

The camera on may lead to a clearer delivery of the message and give a view into someone's world, environmentally and emotionally.?

In addition, when vendors and sellers join a sales call, it is customary for participants to take some time to introduce themselves and disclose professional and sometimes even personal details before starting a business presentation. This, in theory, should help with rapport. In fact, additional scientific literature related to building connections in remote settings suggests that self-disclosure leads to strong connections even between strangers.

In one neuroscience study, I monitored how buyers react to different types of virtual introductions. Imagine a Zoom call where the vendor brings three people, and the client brings three people. Group 1 saw an intro delivered by the seller (also the organizer of the call), in a PowerPoint slide, which contained everyone’s name, picture, and job responsibility for the people on both the vendor and the seller side. Group 2 heard the intros done by one person on each side: the seller introduced everyone on his team and someone on the vendor side introduced everyone on his team. A third group of buyers heard all six people introduce themselves just with their name and job function. And Group 4 heard everyone introduce themselves like before, but this time with even more details about their business aspirations and what they hoped to get out of the call. My hypothesis was that, in the name of efficiency, Group 2 would perform best because they heard only two introductions that covered everybody. I suspected Groups 3 and 4 would not perform well because they took too long. I was wrong.

Group 3, the group that heard the brief intros from everyone on the call, performed the best in terms of exhibiting approach behavior and being in a positive mood - important conditions for building rapport. In the age of AI, hearing from other humans (at least who they are and what they do) seems to be important, especially when we are not in the same room.

What makes buyers trust you?

Trust is an essential ingredient in building rapport. But how do you measure trust, beyond self-reports? Trust is a feature observed in several EEG studies through a combination of low attention, positive valence, and low arousal sates. It’s possible that low attention is provoked by the fact that once you trust someone and rapport is starting to build, you can let your guard down, you don’t have to be so vigilant any more.

Remember the Camera On recommendation earlier? The raincloud charts below indicate how the data in the camera On condition (Group 1 in green) trended toward this combination of low attention, positive valence, and low arousal.?

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And remember the study with the groups that listened to different introductions, some short, some long? The group of buyers who listened to everyone introducing themselves just briefly (Group 3) also experienced the optimal combination of attention, valence and arousal, indicative of a feeling of trust.

So, keeping in mind the results from all these studies, consider that rapport is based on establishing positive valence, synchronization, motivation, and trust. What must also tie all these variables together is good recall of the sales content because memory feeds decision making.?

Remember the hybrid modality, where buyers did not perform so well in some of these variables related to rapport? There was one thing that did perform well and it’s important to consider it because we all know that hybrid is a reality and sometimes it cannot be avoided. In our experiment, we managed to influence people’s memory even in the hybrid condition and they remembered what we wanted them to remember. This happened because the presentation included a clear and repeated main message, language that built mental pictures, abundant animations that kept a brisk pace, emotion laden words, and slides that followed design principles associated with persuasion such as contrast, hierarchy of ideas, proximity, and balance. So, for your next interaction, in addition to aiming to build rapport, aim to build memory too. After all, what good is rapport if no one remembers your cause?

Carmen Simon, PhD, is the Chief Science Officer at Corporate Visions?and author of?Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions. She uses neuroscience tools to research how the brain processes business messages, remembers them, and decides to act (or not). The research are translated into practical guidelines, which sellers and marketers use to interact with B2B customers, available in the CVI advisory platform.