Exploring the role of salesperson attributes and service behaviors in adaptive selling

Services organizations face ever-increasing customer demands and competition in the marketplace, especially in the face-to-face adaptive sales encounters at retail level, making it extremely important to recruit the right kind of salespeople and give them the right kind of training to serve their cu...

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Main Authors: Lo, S., Sharma, Piyush
Format: Book Chapter
Published: 2015
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/11817
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author Lo, S.
Sharma, Piyush
author_facet Lo, S.
Sharma, Piyush
author_sort Lo, S.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Services organizations face ever-increasing customer demands and competition in the marketplace, especially in the face-to-face adaptive sales encounters at retail level, making it extremely important to recruit the right kind of salespeople and give them the right kind of training to serve their customers better. However, there is little prior research that combines these two perspectives in the adaptive selling context. We address this gap with a comprehensive model including four salesperson characteristics (attractiveness, communication ability, expertise and trustworthiness) as antecedents, three service performance behaviors (service manner, extra role and need identification) as mediators, and three important outcome behaviors (willingness to disclose, customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions) as consequences. We also test this model using a field-survey with actual customers in a retail setting in Hong Kong. Our findings help demystify the adaptive selling by unraveling the customer evaluation and judgment processes.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-118172020-07-22T03:55:54Z Exploring the role of salesperson attributes and service behaviors in adaptive selling Lo, S. Sharma, Piyush Services organizations face ever-increasing customer demands and competition in the marketplace, especially in the face-to-face adaptive sales encounters at retail level, making it extremely important to recruit the right kind of salespeople and give them the right kind of training to serve their customers better. However, there is little prior research that combines these two perspectives in the adaptive selling context. We address this gap with a comprehensive model including four salesperson characteristics (attractiveness, communication ability, expertise and trustworthiness) as antecedents, three service performance behaviors (service manner, extra role and need identification) as mediators, and three important outcome behaviors (willingness to disclose, customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions) as consequences. We also test this model using a field-survey with actual customers in a retail setting in Hong Kong. Our findings help demystify the adaptive selling by unraveling the customer evaluation and judgment processes. 2015 Book Chapter http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/11817 10.1007/978-3-319-13440-6_5 fulltext
spellingShingle Lo, S.
Sharma, Piyush
Exploring the role of salesperson attributes and service behaviors in adaptive selling
title Exploring the role of salesperson attributes and service behaviors in adaptive selling
title_full Exploring the role of salesperson attributes and service behaviors in adaptive selling
title_fullStr Exploring the role of salesperson attributes and service behaviors in adaptive selling
title_full_unstemmed Exploring the role of salesperson attributes and service behaviors in adaptive selling
title_short Exploring the role of salesperson attributes and service behaviors in adaptive selling
title_sort exploring the role of salesperson attributes and service behaviors in adaptive selling
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/11817