Does the salesperson like customers? A conceptual and empirical examination of the persuasive effect of perceptions of the salesperson's affect toward customers

Avatars as salespeople: Communication style, trust, and intentions

“…Thus, the heuristic value of perceived avatar salesperson friendliness may also have benefits for decision-making (Sharma, 1999;Swan et al, 1988) and in differentiating the website service through the addition of less impersonal process attributes.…”

“…Although some studies of salesperson interaction style find that taskspecific behaviors have the stronger impact, in the majority of cases a social-orientation style is also effective in enhancing persuasion, trust and patronage intentions (Darian et al, 2005;Sharma, 1999). Hence:…”

“…Offline, salesperson positive affect towards customers enhances persuasion (Sharma, 1999). The perception of affective orientation towards the customer is one of the external heuristic cues that shoppers use in situations of uncertainty (Swan et al, 1988), such as when purchasing credence goods/services.…”

Retail patronage intentions: the relative importance of perceived prices and salesperson service attributes

“…One study found that if salespeople are perceived to have a positive affect toward their customers, message processing and persuasion are enhanced (Sharma, 1999). Another study has linked the salesperson characteristics of willingness to listen and product/store knowledge with consumer complaint responses, as well as consumer perceptions of the salesperson and the retail establishment (Clopton et al, 2001).…”

Mature relationships: Why does relational orientation turn into transaction orientation?

“…Thus, managers with greater experience are likely to have better developed persuasion knowledge structures-agent knowledge, topic knowledge, and persuasion knowledgecompared to those who are relatively inexperienced. The better-developed persuasion knowledge structures enable the managers to see through the persuasion tactics of salespeople (Sharma, 1997). Purchasing and alliance managers deal with the persuasion strategies and tactics of salespersons; hence, the model is particularly relevant to managers in the buying firm.…”