Ask nicely: Difference between revisions

====Shockers====

“'''Please do not enter without a face mask.'''”: This sets up the worst possible scenario: that all customers are barred from entry, ''unless they overcome their prohibition'' by meeting certain conditions. “YOU ARE NOT REALLY WELCOME HERE,” screeches this sign, “EVEN IF YOU DO FULFIL THESE CONDITIONS”. This ''assumes'' potential customers, far from being beloved members of your extended family, welcome to sit by your hearth at any time without judgement, are TRANSGRESSORS IN NEED OF CORRECTION. Many will accept the invitation to keep walking, even if they can meet the conditions. Even if they ''are already'' meeting the conditions. Those who do enter will feel chided and will be less favorably disposed as a result.

“'''Please put on a face mask before entering.'''”: This is bossy, and by commanding immediate corrective action, assumes every one of your customers and prospects — remember, a prospective customer is just a friend you haven’t met yet, right? — is violating yours and the nation’s basic ethical standards. It conveys the idea that a customer’s arrival is some kind of necessary evil, only tolerated reluctantly and under certain conditions.

====Better====

“'''Please keep your mask on when in the store.'''”: This is better, assuming as it does that the prospect is already in compliance. It is not therefore chiding in nature. Nor does it impose any conditions on entry, assuming instead that the customer ''will'' enter. Cleverly, also, in presuming that prospect is ''already'' wearing a mask, it prompts those who might have “inadvertently forgotten to” to put one on ''without directly instructing it'' so, allowing a non-masked customer ''to make her own decision'' to put on a mask. But there is still a specific instruction to take a single action to the exclusion of all others. This is a  direct order so, again, the customer is being commanded. ''Nobody'' puts Baby in the corner.

“'''Please don’t take off your mask while you’re in the store.'''”: This has all the advantages of of the the example above: it presumes compliance, imposes no entry condition and lets the customer make her own decision — but it has one further advantage: it phrases the command in the negative, thereby not compelling the customer to take a single mandatory action, but rather ruling out just one course of action, but allowing the multitude of all other non-mutually exclusive possibilities. This way the customer feels maximally empowered, maximally welcomed into the shop and minimally commanded, whilst getting exactly the same message. You might further refine the message: “Feel free to enjoy yourself in the store: We ask only one thing: please don’t take off your mask.”