Salesperson Customer Research Articles

Wearing your success on your sleeve: How salesperson luxury brand consumption affects consumers’ perceptions

First impressions matter. Just as salespeople assess potential customers, consumers make judgments about salespeople, using cues from a salesperson's appearance and behavior to shape their expectations. In this research, we propose that a salesperson's personal display of luxury-branded products (e.g., wearing a Burberry scarf or driving a BMW) in a non-luxury retail setting is an unexplored but consequential cue that negatively frames consumers’ expectations of a pending negotiation. Across four studies, we demonstrate that, in business-to-consumer contexts, when a salesperson displays luxury-branded products, consumers reduce their expectations of receiving a favorable deal compared to when no luxury brands are displayed. Such expectations are problematic as they deter consumers from approaching salespeople, which can lead to lost sales for firms. Further, we find that the negative effect of luxury-branded products on deal expectations is sequentially mediated by consumers’ perceptions of salesperson materialism and moral character. Finally, we demonstrate that cues signaling the salesperson's customer orientation fail to negate the damaging effects of luxury-brand displays and may backfire depending on the signaler. As such, this research provides takeaways for salespeople who sell non-luxury products and offers important contributions to theory.

The effects of positive personality on life insurance salespeople's customer orientation

PurposeStudies have shown that customer orientation has a substantial impact on a business's success. This study examines the effects of positive personality on salespeople's proactive customer orientation (PCO) and responsive customer orientation (RCO) by incorporating the effects of job enthusiasm and transformational leadership.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey is conducted. A total of 511 questionnaires are received from Taiwan's life insurance salespeople. Partial least squares (PLS) regression is used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that positive personality influences PCO and RCO both directly and indirectly through job enthusiasm. The effect of transformational leadership is also found to be significant. Financial service companies should be concerned about the important role of positive personality and transformational leadership in promoting job enthusiasm, PCO and RCO among salespeople.Originality/valuePrevious studies mostly focused on the direct relationship between customer orientation and organizational outcomes, neglecting the role of individual personality. This gap leaves us wondering how a positive personality influences a salesperson's proactive and responsive customer orientation. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine the mechanisms of a positive personality, job enthusiasm, and transformational leadership on salespeople's PCO and RCO.

Identifying the determinants and consequences of post-recovery satisfaction in B2B customers: a multidimensional justice theory perspective

Purpose Drawing on justice theory, this study aims to investigate the determinants and consequences of post-recovery satisfaction in a business-to-business (B2B) sales environment. In addition, customer demandingness is used as a moderator in this study to assess the relationship between distributive justice (DJ), procedural justice (PJ) and interactional justice (IJ) and post-recovery satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual framework was developed by testing five hypotheses based on data collected from 337 salesperson–customer dyads. Findings The findings of this study reveal that DJ, PJ and IJ are positively linked with post-recovery satisfaction. In addition, post-recovery satisfaction negatively impacts customer distrust. On the contrary, customer distrust positively influences value co-creation behavior and has a negative impact on trusting intention. Finally, the customer’s level of demandingness significantly and positively moderates the linkage between the dimensions of justice perception and post-recovery satisfaction. Originality/value Despite extensive literature on distrust, a research model that examines customers’ distrust attitudes toward service failure and B2B recovery satisfaction needs to be developed and validated. In this regard, the authors developed a framework to measure post-recovery satisfaction and its association with customers’ distrust in B2B a context.

Do salesforce management systems actually drive salesperson intentions?

The sales management literature suggests that control-based management systems drive sales effectiveness. However, despite prior research on salesforce management systems, inquiry from an experimental perspective is lacking. Previous studies examining salesforce control and capability control have been primarily conducted utilizing cross-sectional data and methodologies that limit assessment of causality. Thus, the objective of our research is to establish causal links of control-based management systems. Specifically, our first study utilizes video-based scenarios to experimentally manipulate the use of an outcome versus activity control system and the use versus non-use of a capability control approach. Four-hundred and ten business-to-business salespeople provide responses for our experiment that demonstrates 1) outcome control systems enhance salesperson selling orientation, 2) activity-based control systems enhance salesperson customer orientation, as well as perceived organizational and supervisor support, and 3) capability control systems enhance adaptive selling and salesperson creativity. To support our experimental findings, a follow-up qualitative study of fourteen sales managers highlights the crucial importance of sales managers as a part of control system effectiveness. Overall, our research contributes by establishing causal links between control-based management systems and salesperson intentions to utilize selling behaviors that improve sales performance.

Using MASEM to explore the psychological mechanisms linking salespeople's job satisfaction and performance

Satisfied and involved salespeople not only benefit themselves but also contribute to the profitability of their sales organisation. However, no sales research focuses on salespeople's psychological states driving salesperson involvement to sales performance. This study classified salespeople's psychological states influencing sales performance by the objects related to salespeople and the motivational states. The three psychological states are salespeople's motivations for the salespeople themselves (intrinsic motivation), their organisation (organisational commitment) and their customers (customer orientation). In addition, no meta-analysis or empirical sales study has yet identified and clarified the interactions between the salespeople's three psychological states or shown how they mediate the link between salespeople's job satisfaction and performance. This study involved the collection of 141 empirical sales articles (1971–2022) from 26 journals and coded 275 effect sizes with 72,668 survey responses. Meta-analytic structural equational modelling (MASEM) was used to analyse the data and test the conceptual model. The results support the hypotheses: salespeople's job satisfaction is positively related to intrinsic motivation and organisational commitment; salespeople's intrinsic motivation is positively related to job performance, organisational commitment and customer orientation; salespeople's organisational commitment is positively related to job performance; salespeople's customer orientation is positively related to job performance. However, two are not supported: the hypothesis proposing a relationship between salespeople's job satisfaction and customer orientation, and that proposing a link between salespeople's organisational commitment and customer orientation. Based on the findings, a map of the salespeople's three psychological states is proposed, illustrating the link between salespeople's job satisfaction and performance, revealing the dominant role of salespeople's intrinsic motivation in driving the other two psychological states, and identifying the two-way causal relationship between salespeople's intrinsic motivation and job satisfaction. This study also offers marketing analytic professionals a clear roadmap for what the crucial variables are and marketing managers practical advice on how to promote and control the sales force.

Secondary Selling: Beyond the Salesperson–Customer Dyad

A study involving unobtrusive observations of salespeople's behaviors in sales settings surfaces a novel insight: a salesperson's selling effectiveness with a customer may be enhanced by the way the salesperson interacts with secondary entities, such as objects and people outside the core salesperson–customer dyad. Based on this insight and social interest theory, this research introduces the construct of secondary selling. It refers to a salesperson interacting with secondary entities in a manner that indicates to a focal customer that the salesperson values these entities. The pattern of results from four follow-on studies using multiple methods and data sources indicates that, in general, secondary selling reduces a focal customer's reactance to a salesperson's recommendations, which leads to higher sales revenue and customer satisfaction. Customers with high persuasion knowledge (compared with customers with lower persuasion knowledge) are more favorably influenced by secondary selling involving company property but less favorably influenced by secondary selling involving nonfocal customers. In addition to reducing a focal customer's reactance to sales recommendations, secondary selling also helps primary selling (targeted at a focal customer) reduce the customer's reactance to a greater extent. Overall, the results provide evidence of the pervasive and influential role of secondary selling in boosting sales revenue and customer satisfaction in sales exchanges.

Customer–Salesperson Price Negotiations During Exceptional Demand Contractions

Extant literature has studied how customer–salesperson price negotiations evolve in “normal” circumstances. However, recent economic recessions illustrate the need to advance theory on the question of how price negotiations evolve in “abnormal” times when customer demand significantly contracts beyond expected variation. In response to this gap in the literature, this study uses a multi-method design to investigate price negotiations during exceptional demand contractions. Our results from a theories-in-use study reveal that during such circumstances, salespeople’s perceived dependency on customers increases while customers’ perceived dependency on salespeople decreases. The inherent “power shift” should benefit customers in subsequent price negotiations. However, customers are less likely to capitalize on their power if they have a close relationship with a salesperson, implying that salespeople do not have to concede on price negotiations. This effect is likely due to increased sympathy during periods of exceptional demand contractions. The authors further validate key propositions from this qualitative study in a field study and a scenario-based experiment. Altogether, this study suggests that managers should not be too hasty in approving and encouraging salespeople to offer unnecessary price discounts during exceptional demand contractions as buyers may become more sympathetic and lenient during price negotiations.

“Because you are a part of me”: Assessing the effects of salesperson social media use on job outcomes and the moderating roles of moral identity and gender

Although the effects of salesperson social media use have recently received significant scholarly attention, there remains critical research gaps that, if addressed, can further broaden our understanding of the impact of salesperson social media use in business-to-business settings. Grounded in construal level theory and the related psychological distance framework, we suggest that salesperson social media use increases salesperson inclusion-of-the-customer-in-the-self by reducing the psychological distance between the salesperson and their respective customers. More so, we posit that this relationship is positively moderated by salesperson moral identity, such that the relationship is strengthened at higher levels of moral identity. Furthermore, we identify a potential three-way interaction by considering the role of salesperson gender in driving this interactive relationship. Our results, based on survey responses from 158 business-to-business salespeople, lend support to our theoretical model and shows that the moderating effect of salesperson moral identity on the relationship between salesperson social media use and salesperson inclusion-of-customer-in-the-self is stronger for females than it is for males. Additionally, we find that salesperson inclusion-of-customer-in-the-self is related to higher salesperson customer knowledge, which, ultimately, improves salesperson performance. In the light of our findings, we discuss subsequent managerial and theoretical implications.

An intercultural, interpersonal relationship development framework

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how business-to-business (B2B), intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationships develop using the lens of identity management theory (IMT; Imahori and Cupach, 2005).Design/methodology/approachThe research uses qualitative semi-structured interviews on 18 targeted relationships with customers from another culture conducted with business-to-business salespeople.FindingsThe findings indicate that our respondents' relationships moved from trial toward enmeshment and on occasion toward the renegotiation phase, as described in IMT. In the case of low cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships reached the trial and enmeshment phase. In the case of high cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships on occasion evolved toward the renegotiation phase. Salespeople's cultural intelligence (CQ) facilitates the development of interpersonal, intercultural salesperson–customer relationships.Originality/valueThe authors transfer IMT from the personal relationship development arena to B2B intercultural, interpersonal relationships, address a gap in the literature in the understanding of salesperson–customer interpersonal relationships in different contexts and develop a theoretical model to understand intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationship development across different levels of cultural diversity.

Salesperson attributes that influence consumer perceptions of sales interactions

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how modern, digital era customers in a business-to-consumer (B2C) setting prioritize salesperson-customer orientation attributes when evaluating their expectations regarding interactions with salespeople, as well as their impact on positive and negative word-of-mouth. In addition, the research further investigates which negative salesperson attributes have an impact on overall customer experience and satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachRole theory and expectancy-disconfirmation theory form the theoretical foundation for two mixed-method studies. Study 1 is an exploratory content analysis of online consumer reviews and social media word-of-mouth related to consumer experiences with salespeople. Study 2 is a three-round Delphi study investigating which salesperson orientation attributes are most important to the customer in B2C interactions.FindingsThe results uncover which salesperson customer orientation attributes are essential for modern consumers and how they differ as a function of context (retail, direct-selling and follow-up) and how they contribute to the generation of digital word-of-mouth.Originality/valueThis paper expands B2C sales interaction literature by exploring the need for differing sales attributes based on the differential function of the shopping environment.

Creation of PUBLIC SERVICE VALUE Based on the Mediating Effect of Customized Cosmetics Salesperson Customer Empathy in the Relation Between Middle-Aged Women's Cosmetic Consumption Needs and Customized Cosmetic Purchase Intentions

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the relation between the desire to consume customized cosmetics and the purchase intention in middle-aged women. In the relation between these variables, the mediating effect of customer empathy is confirmed. The purpose is to present the implications of the individual public value of beauty services for the expansion of middle-aged women consumption of customized cosmetics. Method: This study used the SPSS 22.0 program as the empirical analysis method for the 515 copies of an online questionnaire for middle-aged women in 17 cities and provinces nationwide. In order to verify the desire to consume cosmetics and the mediating effect of customized cosmetics salesperson’s customer empathy, a re-verification was performed through regression analysis and the Sobel-test according to the mediating effect verification procedure proposed by Baron & Kenny(1986). Results: In Research Question 1, in regards to the desire to consume cosmetics, the desire for brand and self-expression, for relations and belonging, for nature-friendliness, and for pleasure have a significant positive(+) effect on the purchase intention of customized cosmetics. In Research Question 2, the desire for safety, for na-ture-friendliness, and for pleasure had a significant positive(+) effect. In addition, in Research Question 3, the desire for safety(p<.01), for nature-friendliness(p<. 05), and for pleasure(p<.05) mediate the salesperson’s em-pathy towards the customer and their influence on purchase intention was partly significant. Conclusion: This study results show the positive effect of emotional empathy on consumers purchase through the customized cosmetics salesperson cognitive empathy and the importance of their ability to empa-thize in order to induce the consumer s purchasing behavior. Therefore, in the future, customized cosmetics sellers need not only to equip them with specialized knowledge and qualifications to obtain the public value purchase of products and services through empathy, but also to provide training programs.

How customer perception of dependence on salesperson and customer–salesperson guanxi determine salesperson influence effectiveness

This study examined how customer perception of dependence on salesperson (CPDS) and customer–salesperson guanxi determine salesperson influence tactics (SITs) and salesperson influence effectiveness (SIE) in the context of Confucian-rooted culture. We issued 800 online questionnaires to customers of four Taiwanese life insurance companies and obtained 636 valid responses. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypotheses. The results confirmed that CPDS and customer-salesperson guanxi determine SIT usage and SIE, where CPDS also facilitates close customer-salesperson guanxi. We discovered that SITs contribute to the positive effect of customer-salesperson guanxi on SIE, and customer-salesperson guanxi positively mediates the effect of CPDS on SIT usage and SIE. Customer-salesperson guanxi, CPDS, and information exchange, promise, and encouragement tactics contribute to SIE. This may be the first study to associate CPDS and customer-salesperson guanxi with SIT usage and SIE simultaneously in the context of Confucian-rooted culture. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08853134.2021.1947142 .

The effect of honest and humble leadership on salesperson customer orientation

Drawing on Leader-Member Exchange Theory, our study explores how salesperson perceptions of their leaders influence leader-salesperson relationship quality and ultimately salesperson outcomes, including customer orientation and performance. Extending prior research on sales leadership, our model proposes that an important personality trait of a leader — honesty-humility — influences leadership style (i.e., servant leadership). Servant leadership has a positive effect on salesperson outcomes because it enhances leader-subordinate relationship quality. Data from 317 professional salespeople representing a variety of industries lend support for the proposed serial mediation model: honesty-humility → servant leadership → relationship quality → customer orientation. We conclude that the personality trait of honesty-humility affects leadership style, which in turn impacts salesperson customer orientation and performance via a positive effect on relationship quality. Additionally, we show that salesperson perceptions of difficulty in attaining quota moderate the relationship between relationship quality and customer orientation.

Tell me more: how salespeople encourage customer disclosure

Purpose This paper aims to explore salesperson–customer interactions to identify actual behaviors that result in enhanced customer disclosure and classify them as disclosure tactics, and to explore whether certain tactics are more likely to lead to salesperson–customer relationship advancement. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative research uses conversation analysis to identify salesperson disclosure tactics that result in customer disclosure, using 12 video-recordings of authentic business-to-business initial sales meetings between a salesperson and customer. Findings Findings showed four disclosure tactics that salespeople use to get customers to disclose information: embedded expertise claims, tailored references, demonstrations of preparation and customer orientation and benevolence. These tactics appear more often and are executed differently in sales meetings that successfully advance. Originality/value The research addresses an unexplored area of specific salesperson behaviors and their connection to customer disclosure and relationship advancement in the exploration phase. Additionally, this fills a gap that cannot be addressed with traditional survey or interview data and brings conversation analysis to this particular area.

Drown or Blossom? The Impact of Perceived Chronic Time Pressure on Retail Salespeople's Performance and Customer–Salesperson Relationships

For retail salespeople chronic time pressure, a perpetual perception of being rushed for time, is a prevalent and pervasive phenomenon in their daily sales jobs. Despite this practical relevance, consequences of perceived chronic time pressure on retail salespeople's selling behaviors, such as adaptive selling, and selling performance are not well understood. Thus, the authors investigate the effect of retail salespeople's perceived chronic time pressure in interactions with customers and its impact on retail salespeople's adaptive selling behavior, customers’ purchase outcomes, as well as salespeople's overall objective performance. Analysis of dyadic data from 291 salesperson–customer interactions from a large B2C furniture retailer revealed an inverse U-shaped curve for the relationship between retail salespeople's perceived chronic time pressure and their adaptive selling behavior. The chronic time pressure–selling outcome relationship strongly depends on the contingencies of retail salespeople's goal orientations and perceived organizational support and has implications for retail research and practice.

The Impact of Customer-Salesperson Guanxi and Customer Dependence upon Salesperson Influence Effectiveness

This study aims to explore the underlying impact of customer’s perceived dependence on salesperson (CPDS), customer–salesperson guanxi (C-S guanxi), and the customer’s preference of the salesperson’s influence tactics (SITs) on the salesperson’s influence effectiveness. The relationship between CPDS and C-S guanxi is also discussed. Based on the literature review, this study depicts the possible development paths of C-S guanxi and discusses the isolated impact of C-S guanxi dimensions, i.e., ganqing, renqing, mianzi and xinyong, on the customer’s preference of SITs. Several research propositions, theoretical and managerial implications in the context of personal selling and Chinese society are provided.

Servant Leadership, Proactive Work Behavior, and Performance Overall Rating: Testing a Multilevel Model of Moderated Mediation

ABSTRACTPurpose: The goal of this paper is to investigate whether salesperson proactive behavior mediates the relationship between sales manager servant leadership and salesperson overall performance rating by the sales manager. Moreover, it examines whether salesperson customer orientation and political skill moderate the sales manager servant leadership − salesperson proactive behavior ─ salesperson overall performance. Design/methodology/approach: Empirical analysis is based on dyadic data from 181 industrial salespeople and their sales managers in a range of different industries (including both manufacturing and service industries). To analyze the multilevel moderated mediation process, this investigation uses Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling (MSEM). Findings: Sales manager servant leadership was positively related to salespeople overall performance rating through their proactive behavior except when their customer orientation was low. Moreover, this relationship between sales manager servant leadership and overall performance rating through proactive work behavior was stronger the greater the salespeople consumer orientation and political skill. Research implications: The study suggests that sales manager servant leadership is indirectly related to salesperson overall performance rating through salesperson proactive behavior. The findings also support subsequent research on salesperson values, skills, and behaviors as moderators in the servant leadership – proactive behavior – overall performance rating relationship. Understanding how these salesperson factors interact with sales management leadership to produce organizational outcomes (e.g., stress, engagement, organizational commitment) are questions that sales researchers may wish to pursue via further study. Practical implications: Sales managers should employ servant leadership to stimulate salespeople proactive work behavior. This study clearly indicates the salespeople need to adopt customer orientation and to have political skill. Hence, sales managers need to try to improve the customer orientation and the political skill of their salespeople through selection procedures or training programs. Originality/value: The relationship between sales manager servant leadership and salesperson overall performance through proactive work behavior has not been addressed and tested in the literature to date.

Linking improvisational behavior to customer satisfaction: the relational dynamics

PurposeContemporary sales scholarship suggests that salespersons pursuing customer satisfaction should improvise (think and act on their feet) to find solutions to customers’ emergent problems. A missing link in this literature, however, is the relational context within which improvisation takes place and becomes effective. This study aims to examine how the tone of the salesperson–customer relationship (whether cordial or coercive) drives and conditions salesperson improvisation and its implications for customer satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachThe study tests the proposed model using dyadic salesperson–customer data from business-to-business (B2B) markets in Ghana. The relationships are tested using structural equation modeling technique.FindingsThe study finds that salesperson improvisation is associated with customer satisfaction. It also finds the extent of cordiality between salespersons and their customers predicts but does not enhance the value of improvisation for customer satisfaction. The reverse is true for customer exercised coercive power which is not a significant driver of improvisation but can substantially alter its benefits for the worse.Practical implicationsBy implication, salespersons should improvise more to be able to satisfy customers. However, such improvisation must be tempered with a consciousness of the relationship shared with customers and the level of power they exercise in the relationship.Originality/valueBecause improvised behavior deviates from routines and may be unsettling for customers, improvising salespersons must first understand whether their customers would be willing to accommodate such deviations. Yet, the literature is silent on this relational context surrounding improvisation. This study, by exploring facilitating and inhibitory relational variables implicated in improvisation, addresses this gap.

A Study on Salesperson Brand Relationships, Customer Orientation, and Customer Store Loyalty

A Study on Salesperson Brand Relationships, Customer Orientation, and Customer Store Loyalty

영업사원의 고객 공감과 직무만족, 정서적 몰입, 고객지향성 간의 관계 연구

영업사원의 고객 공감과 직무만족, 정서적 몰입, 고객지향성 간의 관계 연구