Salesperson Empathy and Listening: Impact on Relationship Outcomes

This study fills an important gap in the literature by developing a conceptual model that links salesperson empathy and listening skills to three outcome variables. Responses from a mail survey of 162 buyers from a variety of business organizations were used to test this model using structural equat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of marketing theory and practice Vol. 13; no. 3; pp. 16 - 31
Main Authors Aggarwal, Praveen, Castleberry, Stephen B., Ridnour, Rick, Shepherd, C. David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 01.07.2005
Association of Marketing Theory and Practice
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Business
Business to business commerce
Customer relationship management
Customers
Empathy
Hypotheses
Listening
Listening comprehension
Listening skills
Marketing
Personal selling
Purchasing
Relationship marketing
Sales
Sales management
Sales personnel
Salespeople
Studies
Trust
Variables
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Summary:This study fills an important gap in the literature by developing a conceptual model that links salesperson empathy and listening skills to three outcome variables. Responses from a mail survey of 162 buyers from a variety of business organizations were used to test this model using structural equation modeling. The model has an excellent fit (X2 = 1.511, GFI = 0.99, AGFI = 0.94), and indicates a strong positive relationship between empathy and the following: salesperson listening, trust in the salesperson, and satisfaction with the salesperson. Also, listening is positively related to buyer's trust in and satisfaction with the salesperson, but not with future interaction expectations. Trust in and satisfaction with the salesperson were positively related to future interaction expectations.
Bibliography:SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 14
ISSN:1069-6679
1944-7175
DOI:10.1080/10696679.2005.11658547