Many people avoid making negotiation offers as a range of values, because they expect that co-negotiators will “anchor” on the range’s lower value or higher value. 

However, range offers led to stronger outcomes in experiments by Columbia University’s Daniel R. Ames and Malia F. Mason.
This team suggested that these “dual anchors” signal a negotiator’s value awareness and politeness.

Range offers and point offers have varying impacts, depending on the proposer’s perceived preparation, believability, respectfulness, and reasonableness.

Negotiators’ credibility, interpersonal style, and understanding of value  were associated with the anchor value’s influence on agreements.

Ames and Mason tested three types of negotiation proposal ranges:

• Bolstering Range in which the target point value as the bottom of the range and an aspirational value as the top of the range.
  This strategy usually yields generous counteroffers and higher settlement prices. They recommend using Bolstering Range Offers in negotiations.  
• Backdown Range features the target point value as the upper end of the range and a concession value as the lower offer.
  This approach often leads to accepting the lower value and they do not recommend this approach.
• Bracketing Range includes the target point offer and often has neutral settlement outcomes for the offer-maker.
  This tactic can be perceived by co-negotiators as more collaborative and less aggressive.

Extreme anchors are often seen as aggressive and unrealistic, may lead to negotiation breakdown, according to INSEAD’s Martin Schweinsberg with Gillian Ku of London Business School, collaborating with Cynthia S. Wang of University of Michigan, and National University of Singapore’s Madan M. Pillutla.
Even experienced, skillful negotiators said they were offended by extreme offers.
Likewise, less capable negotiators were more likely to walk away from these negotiations.

Point offers and range offers operated independently and interacted to  influence settlement values. 
They concluded that Bolstering Range Offers imply the co-negotiator’s reservation price and can positively influence negotiation outcomes, whereas Precise Offers influence the perception of offer credibility

• When do you present a precise negotiation offer instead of a negotiation range?

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  ©Kathryn Welds