The risky side of inspirational appeals in personal selling: when do customers infer ulterior salesperson motives?

被引:24
作者
Alavi, Sascha [1 ]
Habel, Johannes [2 ]
Schmitz, Christian [1 ]
Richter, Bianca [1 ]
Wieseke, Jan [1 ,2 ,3 ,4 ]
机构
[1] Univ Bochum, Sales & Mkt Dept, Univ Str 150, D-44780 Bochum, Germany
[2] ESMT, HCI, Schlosspl, D-10178 Berlin, Germany
[3] Ruhr Univ Bochum, Sales & Mkt Dept, Bochum, Germany
[4] Loughborough Univ, Mkt & Retailing Dept, Loughborough, Leics, England
关键词
inspirational appeals; personal selling; customer emotions; influence tactics;
D O I
10.1080/08853134.2018.1447385
中图分类号
F [经济];
学科分类号
02 ;
摘要
In personal selling, the inspirational appeal (IA) is a widely promoted tactic that aims at stimulating customers' values and ideals, thereby evoking emotions and arousing their enthusiasm for a product. However, whether IAs in fact improve or undermine salespeople's success in sales talks remains controversial. Therefore, this study examines consequences and key contingencies of IAs in customer-salesperson interactions in a retailing context, using multisource data from several retailing industries for three quantitative studies, comprising a total sample of 590 customer and 174 salesperson responses. Drawing on the Multiple Inferences Model (MIM), the authors show that an IA is likely to drive the customer's inference that the salesperson holds ulterior motives. IAs seem to be particularly detrimental for salespeople with a lack of customer orientation. Beyond expanding research on influence tactics and the ambivalent role of IAs in retailing interactions, these findings can guide practitioners about when to refrain from using an IA.
引用
收藏
页码:323 / 343
页数:21
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