1. Delusive perception--antecedents and consequences of salespeople's misperception of customer commitment
- Author
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Homburg, Christian, Bornemann, Torsten, and Kretzer, Max
- Subjects
Sales personnel -- Management ,Consumer behavior -- Forecasts and trends -- Analysis ,Customer satisfaction -- Analysis ,Company business management ,Market trend/market analysis ,Advertising, marketing and public relations ,Business - Abstract
Although salespeople's perception of their customers is often systematically biased, research on the antecedents and consequences of perceptual inaccuracy in customer sales person relationships is still scarce and limited in scope. Drawing on findings from personality research and social psychology, we therefore empirically examine potential antecedents and consequences of salespeople's misperception of customer commitment in 233 customer-salesperson dyads. Results provide evidence of the effects of customer-related factors, relationship-related factors, and salesperson-related factors on the extent of salespeople's misperception of customer commitment. Moreover, we show that salespeople with an upwardly biased perception of customer commitment engage in less relationship-building effort, which in turn negatively affects customer behavior. Keywords Relationship marketing * Personal selling * Customer commitment * Perceptual accuracy, The sales literature generally emphasizes the importance of personal interaction in delivering benefits to customers. However, due to scarce time and resources, salespeople need to decide on a regular basis [...]
- Published
- 2014
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