Customer Query Handling in Sales Interactions
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J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-017-0569-y ORIGINAL EMPIRICAL RESEARCH Customer query handling in sales interactions Sunil Singh1 & Detelina Marinova2 & Jagdip Singh3 & Kenneth R. Evans4 Received: 3 August 2016 /Accepted: 16 October 2017 # Academy of Marketing Science 2017 Abstract Using a novel approach with video-recordings of corrections, support the proposed tradeoffs such that the effec- sales interactions, this study focuses on a dynamic analysis of tiveness of salesperson’s resolving behavior is significantly salesperson effectiveness in handling customer queries. We curtailed, even neutralized, by the salesperson’srelatingand conceptualize salesperson behaviors, namely, resolving, emoting behaviors. We situate these counterintuitive results relating,andemoting, as separate elements of customer query within the extant theory and research on sales interactions, handling and empirically identify the distinct verbal and non- and outline implications for practice. verbal cues that salespeople use to display these behaviors during sales interactions. We draw from compensation effects Keywords Customer query handling . Customer interest . in social cognition theory to propose that customers’ percep- Salesperson behaviors . Linguistic cues . Dynamic effects tions of a salesperson’s effectiveness are prone to trade-offs between competence (resolving behaviors) and warmth (relat- Customer queries, including questions, requests, objections, and ing and emoting behaviors). Results, robust to endogeneity other asks, are common in salesperson–customer interactions (Clark et al. 1994; Clark and Pinch 2001; Packard et al. 2014; Mark Houston served as Area Editor for this article. Schurr et al. 1985).1 Queries are motivated by customers’ need Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article for more information (e.g., features), greater clarity (e.g., benefits/ (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-017-0569-y) contains supplementary costs), special requests (e.g., preferred costing), or settling material, which is available to authorized users. concerns/objections (e.g., counter-claims). In this sense, customers’ queries seek to reduce uncertainty as they process * Sunil Singh how the salesperson’s offer/solution pitch fits with their needs [email protected] and wants (Clark et al. 1994;ClarkandPinch2001;Dalyand Redlich 2016; Hunt and Bashaw 1999, 2001). Handling Detelina Marinova ’ [email protected] customer queries is critical to the salesperson s role as a knowl- edge broker in sales interactions (Cicala et al. 2012;Rappetal. Jagdip Singh [email protected] 2014; Verbeke et al. 2011). Often, high and low performing salespersons are differentiated by how customer queries are han- Kenneth R. Evans dled during sales interactions (Schuster and Danes 1986). Past [email protected] research has examined salesperson queries—questions, requests, and challenges—that salespeople rhetorically pose in sales inter- 1 College of Business, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA actions as part of persuasion tactics and solution selling (Meyer 2 Robert J. Trulaske College of Business, University of 1 While customer queries are sometimes conceptualized as indicative of a Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA negative sales encounter (e.g., difficult customer), we view customer queries 3 AT&T Professor of Marketing, Weatherhead School of Management, broadly as an effort to seek information or clarification regarding the product/ Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106-7235, USA service and its use from the salesperson. This perspective is consistent with Willett and Pennington’s(1966) conjecture that successful sales encounters are 4 Lamar University, PO Box 10001, Beaumont, TX 77710, USA likely to include more requests and objections. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. et al. 2017; Moncrief and Marshall 2005; Verbeke et al. 2008), Shepherd 1993; Ramsey and Sohi 1997). We also empirically but it largely has ignored customer queries. identify the distinct verbal and nonverbal cues that salespeople Thesourceofqueries—salesperson or customer—has use to display these behaviors during sales interactions. In our different functions in the sales interaction process; one is mo- review (Table 1), we found little prior evidence of either con- tivated by salesperson effort to Bcontrol conversations^ ceptualizing or operationalizing distinct salesperson behaviors (Schuster and Danes 1986, p. 19), while the other is motivated for customer query handling. by customer effort to direct the sales communication toward Third, we theorize and empirically demonstrate the dynam- issues that help reduce her/his uncertainty (Campbell et al. ic and joint impact of salesperson behaviors on customer in- 2006). To the extent that customer’s queries indicate active terest, during query handling, as the sales interactions evolve asks for meaningful input to her/his decision-making (Clark over time. Contrary to findings from extant studies about re- et al. 2003), the salesperson’s effectiveness in handling cus- lational (i.e., warmth) behaviors being universally positive, we tomer queries is likely to shape the customer’s decision- draw from compensation effects in social cognition theory to making process. Past research has examined several salesper- show that customers’ perceptions of a salesperson’seffective- son specific behaviors such as listening, likeability, compe- ness are prone to trade-offs between competence (i.e., resolv- tence, affect, influence, and ability (summarized in Table 1) ing behaviors) and warmth (i.e., relating and emoting) but has largely overlooked the study of salesperson effective- (Holoien and Fiske 2013; Swencionis and Fiske 2016). ness in handling customer queries. Fourth, we use video recordings of salesperson pitches for Moreover, the review of prior research suggests that the life insurance products to examine the dynamics of the sales- salespeople are known to adapt their behaviors in response person–customer interactions (Leigh and Summers 2002). to varying customer and situational needs, but extant studies Our results reveal that a salesperson’s display of resolving have largely relied on static analysis of sales interactions, pay- behavior enhances the customer’s interest in continuing the ing less attention to their dynamic nature. By focusing on sales interaction, but displays of relating or emoting behaviors static analysis, prior work has been able to offer only limited diminish the positive influence of the resolving behavior as insights on the efficacy of salesperson behaviors. In reality, a customer queries unfold. customer may raise multiple queries during the interaction, each representing an effort to reduce uncertainty. The salesperson’s response to one query may lead to another que- Conceptual development and hypotheses ry, in real time and as the interaction unfolds. By aggregating these multiple queries, a static analysis fails to address how The proposed conceptual model in Fig. 1 shows that our study salespeople adjust and adapt their query handling techniques of salespersons’ effectiveness in query handling is guided by: during an interaction, behaviors that are key to Badaptive sell- (1) behavioral focus on both verbal and nonverbal cues (in- ing… [and] crucial to successful selling^ (Clark and Pinch stead of only one or the other as in prior studies) and (2) 2001, p. 642). A dynamic analysis of salesperson effective- effectiveness of customer query handling as indicated by ob- ness also can reveal how customer interest waxes and wanes servable waxing and waning of customer interest in sales com- during the sales interaction when a salesperson either handles munications. We discuss each in turn. the query and reduces uncertainty (effective) or fails to do so By focusing on observable displays of salesperson behav- (ineffective) (Bolander et al. 2017). Thus, dynamic variations iors, this study examines sales interactions as they occur dy- in customer interest within a sales interaction is expected to namically and in practice, rather than relying on aggregated, provide a useful metric for understanding the salesperson’s internalized constructs. We are guided by the notion that sales- adaptiveness to ensure effective query handling. people and customers interact and that the main sources of To address these gaps, we conceptualize and empirically input for their responses are the actions of their counterpart, examine the dynamic effect of salesperson effectiveness in in terms of what they hear (verbal cues) and see (nonverbal handling customer queries using data from video-recordings cues). That is, customers cannot Bread^ a salesperson’smind of an experimental simulation of salesperson–customer inter- or intent but only know what the salesperson says and does actions. Four features of our study are notable. First, our study through verbal and nonverbal cues. For example, salespeople focuses on those phases of sales interactions where the cus- may describe in words how they understand the customer’s tomer asserts his/her control by raising queries, noting that query and relay related content to help resolve the challenge past research has generally focused more heavily on sales posed by the query. They (salespeople) might simultaneously communications where a salesperson asserts control (e.g., smile to send an emotive signal of the pleasure taken in ad- persuasion tactics; Plouffe et al. 2016; Sharma 1999). dressing customer’s queries. Although prior