The impact of sales contests on customer listening: an empirical study in a telesales context

Maryse Koehl, Juliet F. Poujol and John F. Tanner Jr
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Juliet F. Poujol: MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School - UM - Université de Montpellier

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Abstract: Companies often use sales contests to achieve short-term objectives to motivate salespeople and to boost sales. However, sales contests also may encourage salespeople to adopt less relational behaviors and limit their ability to manage customer relationships, as manifested in their customer listening practices. Therefore, this study, based on a natural field experiment, examines the effects of a sales contest on customer listening. In so doing, four dimensions of customer listening (passive, active, adaptive, and assertive listening), associated with a process of listening (Hearing, Processing, and Responding), were identified. The study helps clarify the effect of a sales contest on these four dimensions of customer listening by telesales agents. The results reveal that this sales contest exerts negative effects only on the active and passive customer listening, not on the adaptive and assertive customer listening. The study sheds light on how sales contests influence important behaviors such as customer listening, as well as on the nature of customer listening itself.

Keywords: call center; customer listening; sales contests; telesales (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02013750v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 2016, 36 (3), pp.281-293. ⟨10.1080/08853134.2016.1186556⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02013750

DOI: 10.1080/08853134.2016.1186556

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