IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03122111.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Management of sales advisers and service climate: an experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Fanny-Juliet Poujol

    (Institut d'Administration des Entreprises de Valenciennes - UVHC - Université de Valenciennes et du Hainaut-Cambrésis)

Abstract

Purpose: Although experts agree on the importance of service quality, sales force management practices are often far from conforming to their recommendations. The current use of sales contests with quantitative objectives on turnover or profit margin is evidence of this divergence. Sharma notes the need for a better understanding of the impact of such incentives on quality of service. In response to this call, the concept of "service climate" as an internal indicator of customer perception of service quality is studied. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is to consider which type of sales contest best preserves service climate. Design/methodology/approach: Four characteristics of sales contests are examined through an experimental approach. Salespeople's perception of service climate are measured. Hypotheses are tested with ANOVA. Findings: The study shows that sales contest can have a negative impact on the service climate. The results give indications as to which incentives are optimal in terms of service climate. Surprisingly, selective contests, with a ranked competition and few winners, would affect service climate to a lesser extent. Practical implications: The findings of this study are unexpected and indicate that sales managers need to pay attention not only to sales contest's characteristics but also their interaction. The sales contest is not an addition to but a combination of modalities. Originality/value: This study has both managerial and research implications for design and implementation of sales contest.

Suggested Citation

  • Fanny-Juliet Poujol, 2009. "Management of sales advisers and service climate: an experiment," Post-Print hal-03122111, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03122111
    DOI: 10.1108/09564230910964390
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.parisnanterre.fr/hal-03122111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.parisnanterre.fr/hal-03122111/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/09564230910964390?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fanny Poujol & Christophe Fournier, 2007. "Caractéristiques d’un challenge de vente et adhésion des commerciaux : quelques recommandations," Post-Print hal-02915235, HAL.
    2. Anil Gaba & Ajay Kalra, 1999. "Risk Behavior in Response to Quotas and Contests," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(3), pages 417-434.
    3. Murphy, William H., 2004. "In pursuit of short-term goals: anticipating the unintended consequences of using special incentives to motivate the sales force," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(11), pages 1265-1275, November.
    4. Ajay Kalra & Mengze Shi, 2001. "Designing Optimal Sales Contests: A Theoretical Perspective," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(2), pages 170-193, December.
    5. Drago, Robert & Turnbull, Geoffrey K., 1991. "Competition and cooperation in the workplace," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 347-364, May.
    6. Eric Langeard & Pierre Eiglier, 1994. "Relation de service et marketing," Post-Print halshs-02926686, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benistant, Julien & Galeotti, Fabio & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2022. "Competition, information, and the erosion of morals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 148-163.
    2. Julien Benistant & Fabio Galeotti & Marie Claire Villeval, 2021. "The Distinct Impact of Information and Incentives on Cheating," Working Papers halshs-03110295, HAL.
    3. Hailian Qiu & Ning Wang & Minglong Li, 2021. "Stimulating Customer Citizenship Behavior With Service Climate: The Mediating Role of Customer Psychological Empowerment," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440211, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Verbeke, Willem & Bagozzi, Richard P. & Belschak, Frank D., 2016. "The role of status and leadership style in sales contests: A natural field experiment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4112-4120.
    2. Maryse Koehl & Juliet F. Poujol & John F. Tanner Jr, 2016. "The impact of sales contests on customer listening: an empirical study in a telesales context," Post-Print hal-02013750, HAL.
    3. Cui, Xuegang & Feltovich, Nick & Zhang, Kun, 2022. "Incentive schemes, framing, and market behaviour: Evidence from an asset-market experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 301-324.
    4. Biao Luo & Chengyuan Wang & Tieshan Li, 2018. "Inequity-averse agents’ deserved concerns under the linear contract: a social network setting," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 268(1), pages 129-148, September.
    5. James W. Bono, 2008. "Sales contests, promotion decisions and heterogeneous risk," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(4), pages 371-382.
    6. Xiaotie Deng & Yotam Gafni & Ron Lavi & Tao Lin & Hongyi Ling, 2021. "From Monopoly to Competition: Optimal Contests Prevail," Papers 2107.13363, arXiv.org.
    7. Sandrine Hollet-Haudebert & Christophe Fournier & Fanny-Juliet Poujol & Ellen Pullins, 2015. "Designing Sales Contests in Call Centers: Understanding Inside Salespeople’s Preferences for Contest Design Attributes and Rewards," Post-Print hal-02044554, HAL.
    8. Johannes Münster, 2007. "Selection Tournaments, Sabotage, and Participation," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 943-970, December.
    9. Ravula, Prashanth & Bhatnagar, Amit & Ghose, Sanjoy, 2020. "Antecedents and consequences of cross-effects: An empirical analysis of omni-coupons," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 405-420.
    10. Debapriya Jojo Paul & Julia Henker & Sian Owen, 2019. "The aggregate impacts of tournament incentives in experimental asset markets," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 441-476, June.
    11. Lauber, Arne & March, Christoph & Sahm, Marco, 2023. "Optimal and fair prizing in sequential round-robin tournaments: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 30-51.
    12. Johannes Habel & Sascha Alavi & Nicolas Heinitz, 2023. "A theory of predictive sales analytics adoption," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 13(1), pages 34-54, June.
    13. Münster, Johannes, 2006. "Selection Tournaments, Sabotage, and Participation," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 118, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    14. Beck A. Taylor & Justin G. Trogdon, 2002. "Losing to Win: Tournament Incentives in the National Basketball Association," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 23-41, January.
    15. Nasratullah Obaid & Ahmad Tariq & Obaidullah Shinwari & Ihsanullah Shorish & Syed Sajad Ali Sha, 2023. "Importance of seller’s ethical behaviour and its Impact on sales performance at the sole proprietorship level businesses in Jalalabad market of Afghanistan," Eximia Journal, Plus Communication Consulting SRL, vol. 6(1), pages 10-27, January.
    16. Subhasish Chowdhury & Oliver Gürtler, 2015. "Sabotage in contests: a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(1), pages 135-155, July.
    17. Kräkel, Matthias & Schöttner, Anja, 2010. "Technology Choice and Incentives under Relative Performance Schemes," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 10/2010, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    18. Michelle Brown & John Heywood, 2009. "Helpless in Finance: The Cost of Helping Effort Among Bank Employees," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 176-195, June.
    19. Sayanjit Guha, 2016. "Effects of Motivating to Sustain Commitment of the Sales Professionals," Journal of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour in Emerging Markets, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 2(4), pages 58-74.
    20. Bao, Zhengyang & Leibbrandt, Andreas, 2024. "Tournaments with safeguards: A blessing or a curse for women?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 292-306.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03122111. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.