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Tell me more: how salespeople encourage customer disclosure

Tell me more: how salespeople encourage customer disclosure This paper aims to explore salesperson–customer interactions to identify actual behaviors that result in enhanced customer disclosure and classify them as disclosure tactics, and to explore whether certain tactics are more likely to lead to salesperson–customer relationship advancement.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research uses conversation analysis to identify salesperson disclosure tactics that result in customer disclosure, using 12 video-recordings of authentic business-to-business initial sales meetings between a salesperson and customer.FindingsFindings showed four disclosure tactics that salespeople use to get customers to disclose information: embedded expertise claims, tailored references, demonstrations of preparation and customer orientation and benevolence. These tactics appear more often and are executed differently in sales meetings that successfully advance.Originality/valueThe research addresses an unexplored area of specific salesperson behaviors and their connection to customer disclosure and relationship advancement in the exploration phase. Additionally, this fills a gap that cannot be addressed with traditional survey or interview data and brings conversation analysis to this particular area. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing Emerald Publishing

Tell me more: how salespeople encourage customer disclosure

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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
0885-8624
DOI
10.1108/jbim-11-2019-0482
Publisher site
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Abstract

This paper aims to explore salesperson–customer interactions to identify actual behaviors that result in enhanced customer disclosure and classify them as disclosure tactics, and to explore whether certain tactics are more likely to lead to salesperson–customer relationship advancement.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research uses conversation analysis to identify salesperson disclosure tactics that result in customer disclosure, using 12 video-recordings of authentic business-to-business initial sales meetings between a salesperson and customer.FindingsFindings showed four disclosure tactics that salespeople use to get customers to disclose information: embedded expertise claims, tailored references, demonstrations of preparation and customer orientation and benevolence. These tactics appear more often and are executed differently in sales meetings that successfully advance.Originality/valueThe research addresses an unexplored area of specific salesperson behaviors and their connection to customer disclosure and relationship advancement in the exploration phase. Additionally, this fills a gap that cannot be addressed with traditional survey or interview data and brings conversation analysis to this particular area.

Journal

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing – Emerald Publishing

Published: May 25, 2021

Keywords: Disclosure; Interaction; Conversational analysis; Sales behaviors; Salesperson–customer relationship; Exploration; Sales interaction

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