Effectiveness of Varying Sales Style on Consumer Orientations

Using the role-play technique, the effect of four different sales orientations on customers with four different need patterns was examined. In a factorial design, product centred, company-centred, customer-centred, and self-centred salespersons interacted with strong need, marginal need, no need, and negative need consumers. Each salesperson-customer pair interacted for a period of ten minutes during which the salesperson attempted to sell a radio set to the customer. Neither the salesperson nor the customer was aware of the other’s orientation. The study was conducted separately on two different samples; three groups of salesmen and three groups of students with eight persons in each group. Data obtained from both samples were quite similar. Results indicated that product-centred salespersons made more positive impact on consumers followed by customer-centred and the company-centred. Self-centred salespersons had relatively low impact. Furthermore, product-centred salespersons made relatively more impact on low-need customers while company-centred salespersons were better off with high-need customers. Customer-centred salespersons showed more consistency in the impact they made than the other three types, indicating that they are likely to be consistently effective irrespective of the need patterns of customers.