In psychology, the term compliance means accepting to behave in a way an individual is asked to behave.

Sometimes it is intended to bring compliance in someone – to make them accept to behave in a specific way. For instance, a salesperson may use different techniques to convince a person to buy a product. He may explain the good features of the product to the customer as well as offer some discount if the customer buys more than one product so that the customer can be persuaded to buy the product. Such techniques use to bring compliance in someone – to persuade someone to behave in a specific way – are called techniques of compliance.

There are several techniques of compliance, as follows.

The foot-in-the-door technique works on the principle that if an individual accepts a small request, he is likely to also accept a bigger request. Therefore, compliance is induced as a two-step technique: 1) a small request is made to the person, and 2) after the person agrees to the small request, a bigger request is made to the person. It is believed that people generally do not accept big requests straight, therefore, a small request may be first made to them to make them mentally prepared to accept the bigger request.

Let’s explain this with the help of an example: Suppose a boy wants to get permission and some money from his parents to go on a school recreational trip with his friends. The boy initially asks his parents for permission to go on a school trip with friends. When the parents accept his request to give him permission for going on a trip, he may also express his other request such that he needs some money for enjoying the trip. Since the parents have granted him permission for the trip, they also provide him with some money.

It is called foot-in-the-door technique because it is based on the notion that if you put your foot in the door, you are able to enter the room. 

The door-in-the-face is another technique of compliance where the person initially makes a bigger request, and then, move down to a small and smaller request in a stepwise manner. The smaller request is in real the target request intended to be accepted but the bigger request is made only to increase compliance to the smaller (target) request.

For instance, a person wants to sell his used-car. He sets a price (suppose $ 1000) of his car in his mind. When a customer contacts him to buy his car, he initially gives a higher price quote to the customer (suppose $ 1500) so that the customer can be persuaded at least for the price ($ 1000) that he has set in his mind. When the negotiations, about the price of the car, start between the person and the customer, the person shows flexibility to lower his price demand and finally, the customer agrees to the lower price ($ 1000).

This technique is used with an assumption that people may not accept the bigger request, but when a bigger request is first made to them, they are likely to accept at least the smaller request which in reality is the target request. It is a kind of psychological technique where the person (to accept the request) become ready to happily accept the smaller request when the bigger request is withdrawn. In general situations, where it is not based on give-in-take or it one-way help, its emotional effect may work that people generally think rejecting someone’s request is not good and when they reject the bigger request, they think they should at least accept the smaller request.

It is named face-in-the-door technique on the notion that when an extremely big request is made to a person, he may slam the door in the face of the person (request initiator) and thus, the way is to move down to smaller request to be accepted.

In the low-ball technique, the person is initially given incomplete information to make him accept the request. On agreeing to the request, the complete information is revealed to the person. Initially, the attractive information is provided while hiding the information that may repel the person. For instance, a company may initially provide a small price of their service but hide other costs and taxes which also fall into the total price. On agreeing to avail the service, the customer is given information about all the hidden charges.

For example, a company selling a car gives a specific price of the car but hide many other costs which the customer has to pay at the time of buying the car. For instance, the price of car’s accessories (foot mats, radio, seat covers etc) and some taxes are not initially included in the shown-price of the car. However, when the customer makes an agreement to buy the car, he is provided will all details of these hidden expenses. Since the customer has already made a commitment, he is sometimes less likely to change his decision exactly at the point of buying the car. Some companies used this tactic in past, but it is primarily based on deception and is an unethical practice. Therefore, such practice is banned by law in some countries.

That’s-not-all is another technique where a person demands a high price for a product and offers some free things to be given as a gift with the product. Generally, the price of the product already includes the price (or some portion of the price) of the gifts offered with the product. However, the customer sees these gift as free and are attracted to buy the product. For instance, a woman sees a dress in the shop which also include a handbag as a gift with the dress. The price of the dress may also include the price of the handbag (free gift to be given along). However, the woman may see it as a special deal to get a free handbag with the dress, and thus, she may buy the dress to also get a free handbag.

It is called the that’s-not-all technique because it gives the customer an impression that the price of the product is reduced but that is not all that the customer is getting, free gifts are also given with the product.