The customer is *not* always right. But they absolutely hate being wrong. It's not because they're being Karens. It's because of a built-in psychological quirk. Keep reading to see how buyers rewrite reality—and how you can write it with them. 🧠
Read time: 2.9 minutes ⚡
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Imagine this… You're running late to a dinner reservation you made at a new restaurant. You glance at the clock and shake your head. "I had to take the dogs out, so it's not my fault," you think as you frantically try to find the car keys that someone else must've misplaced. "Plus, my client needed to talk through that new project, so I had to stay on the call longer." While you mentally justify all the reasons you're late, you ignore a cold, hard fact: You're always 10-15 minutes late. When you finally get to the restaurant, you explain to your friends, Julie and Mark, what happened. They nod sympathetically, but they've heard this "everyone else is the reason I'm late" story before.
An hour later, all is forgiven and forgotten, and they're both raving about how good the food is. "This place is amazing! How did you find it?" Julie asks. "Oh, I just have a knack for finding the best restaurants," you say with a grin. You lean back in your chair, feeling quite proud of your taste in restaurants as you scan the dessert menu. Why did you blame circumstances for being late but take personal credit for picking a good restaurant? In today's edition of Why We Buy 🧠 we'll explore Self-Serving Bias—why we attribute our successes to our own abilities and our shortcomings to external factors. Let's get into it.
🧠 The Psychology of Self-Serving Bias
Researchers at Stanford paired college students together and had them take a "social intelligence test." One person in each pair would rank in the 80th percentile, while the other would rank in the 30th percentile. (The results—like the "test"—were fake.) The majority of those who believed they succeeded rated the test as more valid than those who believed they failed.
We tend to give ourselves credit for success, whether it's because of our abilities, effort, or choices. But when things go wrong, we tend to blame outside factors. While this may sound a bit like Fundamental Attribution Error, Self-Serving Bias functions as a defense mechanism that protects our ego and helps us feel good about ourselves. That's why smart marketers cater to how customers actually view reality instead of how they should.
🤑 How To Apply This
Alright, so how can you apply this right now to sell more?
SaaS Celebrate wins and soften setbacks Grammarly sends weekly performance reports that celebrate productivity (e.g., "You were more productive than 97% of Grammarly users"), accuracy, and vocabulary wins. Then they reveal areas for improvement. But here's the key: they carefully shift the language. Instead of "You made this mistake," they reframe it to "This mistake appeared in your writing."
So while their wins are personal achievements, their mistakes are external issues that simply "appeared." (And using Grammarly is the smart way to fix them.)
E-commerce Make returns your problem, not the customer's When customers return items—including those they bought by mistake—Amazon doesn't push back or launch an inquisition. Instead, they ask, "How can we make it right?"
That simple shift moves the failure off the customer and onto the situation—and Amazon. So instead of thinking, "I screwed up," the customer is guided toward, "This didn't work, and Amazon is fixing it."
Apps Make success feel self-made Duolingo celebrates wins every time a user hits a new milestone. And even though progress is heavily shaped by the app's gamification and reminders, the success is framed as a result of their discipline and effort.
So users don't see the app's design as the reason they're finally learning Spanish. Instead, they feel it's because they're consistent and pretty good at language learning.
💥 The Short of It
Your customers wanna feel smart when they win and blameless when they don't. So craft marketing that gives customers credit when things go well and gently deflects blame when they don't. That way, your customers stay the hero of the buyer's journey no matter the outcome. Until next time, happy selling!
P.S. Wanna know how big-brained experts like Steve Jobs and Codie Sanchez built unignorable personal brands? Don't miss my (Katelyn here 👋) brand new newsletter: Unignorable. Subscribe for $0 now >
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