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Exploring the Role of Salesperson Attributes and Service Behaviors in

Adaptive Selling

Chapter · February 2015

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-13440-6_5

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EXPLORING THE ROLE OF SALESPERSON ATTRIBUTES AND
SERVICE BEHAVIORS IN ADAPTIVE SELLING

See Mei (Mandy) Lo

HKT Limited, Hong Kong

Piyush Sharma
Curtin University, Bentley WA 6102, Australia

ABSTRACT

Services organizations face ever-increasing customer demands and competition in

the marketplace, especially in the face-to-face adaptive sales encounters at retail
level, making it extremely important to recruit the right kind of salespeople and
give them the right kind of training to serve their customers better. However,
there is little prior research that combines these two perspectives in the adaptive
selling context. We address this gap with a comprehensive model including four
salesperson characteristics (attractiveness, communication ability, expertise and
trustworthiness) as antecedents, three service performance behaviors (service
manner, extra role and need identification) as mediators, and three important
outcome behaviors (willingness to disclose, customer satisfaction and behavioral
intentions) as consequences. We also test this model using a field-survey with
actual customers in a retail setting in Hong Kong. Our findings help demystify the
adaptive selling by unraveling the customer evaluation and judgment processes.

Keywords: adaptive selling; salesperson characteristics; performance behavior;

willingness to disclose; customer satisfaction; behavioral intentions

1
 INTRODUCTION

Under current turbulent economic times, customers search for greater value and shop

more carefully and deliberately; resulting in increased competition, especially in the retail and

service industries, as the customers become more sophisticated and demanding (Grewal et al.,

2009). Therefore, in order to maintain their competitiveness, retailers have to meet customers’

needs and to differentiate themselves by offering good customer service and unique shopping

experience to every customers in order to maintain long term relationship (Karmarkar, 2004).

Service organizations are unique as the services they deliver are intangible (Zeithaml et

al., 1985). Service employees need knowledge and access to information to help solving

customer problems, and they need to be able to deal with angry customers, even in situation

where the customer is rude, the employee is exhausted, or both (Berry et al., 1994). Frontline

salespersons play in important role not just in selling but also providing service, answering

queries and handling complaints; in fact, they represent the organization’s face to the customers

during interactions known as ‘moment of truth’.

In other words, the quality of service provided by the salesperson is as important as the

quality of the products sold by them. Prior research and service managers have tried to identify

and validate those salesperson characteristics that positively affect performance outcomes (Park

and Holloway, 2003). The study of factors that drive performance of salespeople, and how these

factors vary across different contexts, are essential for both researchers and managers in both

sales and marketing functions (Verbeke, Dietz and Verwaal, 2011). However, there is hardly any

research that studies salesperson characteristics, their performance behavior and important

customer outcomes using a common conceptual framework in a single study.

2
 We address this important research gap by introducing a comprehensive model with four

salesperson characteristics (attractiveness, communication ability, expertise and trustworthiness),

three service performance behaviors (service manner, extra role and need identification) and

three important outcome behaviors (willingness to disclose, customer satisfaction and behavioral

intentions). We test this model using a field-survey with actual retail customers in Hong Kong.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT

Salesperson Characteristics

Prior research on the physical attractiveness stereotype identified general categories of

variables associated with it, including social competence, intellectual competence, concern for

others, integrity, and psychological stability (Eagly et al. 1991), as well as sales performance

(Anderson, 1995). More recently, others argue that besides physical attractiveness, other

variables may also affect sales performance, including communication ability and likeability -

based on social competence, perceived salesperson expertise - based on intellectual competence,

and trustworthiness - based on integrity and psychological stability (Ahearne et al. 1999).

Perceived Physical Attractiveness (PPA): Physical attractiveness is defined as the extent

which the salesperson is perceived by the customer as possessing an appealing and pleasing

physical appearance (Ahearne et al. 1999). Gulas and McKeage (2000) argue that there is a

nearly automatic tendency to categorize a person as attractive or unattractive. In fact, recent

research with neuroimaging devices also shows that a high level of physical attractiveness of a

stimulus face elicits different brain activity than a low level of physical attractiveness of a

stimulus face (O’Doherty et al., 2003).

3
 Dion et al., (1972) summarize one of the most widely cited conclusions from research on

physical attractiveness as, "what is beautiful is good" (p. 285). This statement links beauty and

goodness to suggest the existence of a stereotype whereby physically attractive individuals are

believed to possess a wide variety of positive personal qualities and successful life. Hatfield and

Sprecher (1986) even wrote that "people believe good-looking people possess almost all the

virtues known to humankind". Prior research uses three major theories to explain this stereotype,

namely attribution, implicit personality and social categorization theories.

Perceived Communication Ability (PCA): According to Frederick and Webster (1968),

selling is a communication process during which the source (firm), the communicator

(salesperson), the message (presentation), and receiver (prospect) all can influence the sales

outcome. Communication skills include listening to the prospect’s description of problem and

salesperson’s ability to sense prospect’s predispositions; which are important social competences

that may affect sales performance (Eagly et al, 1991; Anderson, 1995). Hence, communication

ability is defined as the effective presentation of one’s case to customer, which involves tailoring

the sales call to meet customers’ needs, listening and making effective use of time, and

transferring clearly the intended information to customer (Ahearne, Gruen and Jarvis, 1999).

Communication ability is particularly important for adaptive selling as salesperson should

alter their sales behavior during a customer interaction or across customer interactions based on

perceived information about the nature of selling situation (Weitz, Sujan and Sujan, 1986).

Salespersons who gather more customer information about the prospect can customize the

content and format of their messages for more effective communication (Franke and Park, 2006).

Coulter and Coulter (2003) argue that both performance-related competence (e.g. competence

and customization) and personality-related competence (e.g. similarity) are antecedents of trust.

4
 Perceived Expertise (PEX): Perceived expertise of the salesperson is defined as the

extent to which a salesperson is viewed as having knowledge regarding the application and

attributes of her or his product, competing products, and of the customer’s business (Ahearne,

Gruen and Jarvis, 1999). Prior research shows a positive influence of perceived expertise on a

wide range of sales outcomes, including customer satisfaction, trust and productivity.

Perceived Trustworthiness (PTW): Trust is defined as the belief that the exchange party

is able to fulfill its obligations reliably and confidently, is motivated to seek mutually beneficial

gains, and will refrain from abusing the relationship (Cho, 2006, p. 26). Dwyer et al (1987)

found that trust could reduce tensions and conflicts between firms, facilitate information

disclosure, enhance coordination and encourage future transactions. In consumer settings,

Sirdeshmukh et al. (2002) show that trust plays a critical role in building and maintaining

customer-firm relationship, enhancing and maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Consumers associate trustworthiness with attributes such as competence and benevolence.

Competence refers to the degree to which partners perceive each other as having the skills,

abilities and knowledge for effective task performance (Smith and Barclay, 1997). Benevolence

refers to the behaviors that reflect the underlying motivation to place customer’s interest ahead of

self-interest (Sirdeshmukh et al, 2002). Trust in an exchange partner reduces perceived risk,

which in turn may lead to greater willingness of self disclosure (Cho 2006).

Service performance behaviors

Personal selling is widely adopted at retail channels despite being considered a highly

expensive (Roman and Martin, 2008) yet effective (Spiro and Weitz, 1990) marketing vehicle.

In the sales interaction process, customers notice employee’s service manner in the form of facial

5
expressions, bodily gestures, tone of voice, and language (Mattila and Enz, 2002), which affect

how customers evaluate their experience (Pugh, 2001). Customers who evaluate the salesperson

more positively would perceive better observable employee service behavior, including service

manner, need identification (Lloyd and Sheriff, 2011) and discretionary behaviors to take extra-

role beyond formal role requirement to serve customer (Bettencourt and Brown, 1997).

Perceived service manner (PSM): These are behaviors that salespersons demonstrate to

foster interpersonal relationships with the customers, which facilitates interaction with the

customer in a friendly and enthusiastic manner (Lloyd and Luk, 2011). It relates to the

congeniality dimension on the service employee’s positive attitude and warm temperament,

which makes them experience empathy for the customer (Winsted 2000).

Extra role behavior (ERB): These behaviors refer to service performance going beyond

the call of duty to serve customers, and to contribute to service excellence to the company

(Bitner 1995). Bettencourt and Brown (1997) propose that extra-role service behavior

encompasses the ‘little extras’ and the ‘spontaneous attention’ that service employees direct at

customers during the service encounters. Extra-role performance not only influences evaluations

of salespeople (Podsakoff and MacKenzie 1994) but also overall organizational effectiveness

and/or success (Podsakoff, Ahearne, and MacKenzie, 1997).

Need identification behaviors (NIB): In the adaptive selling context, salespeople need to

ask relevant questions and anticipate the preferences of the customer in order to identify the most

suitable product or service offering for them (Lloyd and Luk, 2011). Sharing of information

between the salesperson and the customer is an integral part of this process.

Based on the above, we posit that the four attributes of salespersons, namely perceived

physical attractiveness, communication ability, expertise and trustworthiness of salespersons

6
have a positive impact on service manner, extra role behaviors and need identification by the

salesperson, and put forth the following hypotheses:

H1 Perceived physical attractiveness is associated positively with a) perceived service

manner behavior, b) extra role behavior, and c) need identification behavior.
H2 Perceived communication ability is associated positively with a) perceived service
manner behavior, b) extra role behavior, and c) need identification behavior.
H3 Perceived expertise is associated positively with a) perceived service manner
behavior, b) extra role behavior, and c) need identification behavior.
H4 Perceived trustworthiness is associated positively with a) perceived service manner
behavior, b) extra role behavior, and c) need identification behavior.

Adaptive Selling - Customer Outcomes

Willingness to disclosure personal information (WTD): Marketers have a growing

interest to acquire more knowledge about customers’ preferences to better meet their needs, to

enhance customer service, and to explore more opportunities to introduce new products and

services (White, 2004). Deighton (1996) argues that getting more customer information would

enable firms to pursue information-based relationship, and likely to achieve more efficient

targeting, more tailored offerings and greater customer retention. Collins and Miller (1994)

argue that self disclosure plays a central role in development and maintenance of relations.

Adaptive selling is defined as “engaging in planning to determine the suitability of sales

behaviors and activities that will be undertaken, the capacity to engage in a wide range of selling

behaviors and activities, and the alteration of sales behaviors and activities in keeping with

situational considerations” (Sujan, Weitz, and Kumar, 1994). In the adaptive selling context,

salesperson can adapt their sales message based on information provided by the customer and

nature of the selling situation. Hunter and Perreault (2006) propose that salespeople will be more

7
capable of practicing adaptive selling if they have more precise customer information during the

interaction as it can help them customize their sales message, and recommend products and

service that meet customers’ specific needs. Price et al (1995) argued that self-disclosure is

needed to facilitate sharing of information between the salesperson and the customer. Adaptive

selling leads to strong sales performance (Boorom et al, 1998; Frank and Park 2006).

Based on above discussion, we posit that customers who evaluate the salesperson’s

service behavior more positively are more willing to disclose personal information during the

interaction process. By knowing customers’ needs, more customized services can be offered and

customers would evaluate the counter experience more positively and they are more willing to

engage in long term relationship with the salesperson. These evaluation and judgment processes

are not tested in previous literature. Hence, the following hypotheses:

H5 Customer’s willingness to disclose personal information is positively influenced

by salesperson’s a) perceived service manner, b) extra role, and c) need

identification behavior.

Customer satisfaction (SAT): Customer satisfaction is a key outcome of buyer-seller

relationships and it is influenced by perception of service quality, product quality, price,

situational factors and other personal factors (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993). Rust and Oliver

(1994) define satisfaction as the “customer’s fulfillment response,” which is an evaluation as

well as an emotion-based response to a service, and also a customer’s belief on the probability of

a service leading to a positive feeling. We posit that salesperson’s service manner, extra-role and

need identification behaviors would be positively related with customer satisfaction, as follows:

H6 Customer satisfaction is positively influenced by salesperson’s a) perceived

service manner, b) extra role, and c) need identification behavior.

8
 Behavioral Intentions (BEH): Behavioral intentions such as repurchase intentions, word

of mouth, loyalty and complaining behavior are important for service providers, as satisfied

customer would likely stay with a company for a long period, and contribute to the profitability

of the company by repeated purchase and spreading good experience to others (Zeithaml, Berry

and Parasuraman 1996). We hypothesize that customers are more likely to disclose personal

information to salespersons with more favorable service behaviors and this facilitates adaptive

selling. Specifically, with more information about customer’s needs, the salesperson can

develop and deploy sales presentation tailored to characteristics of each potential customer and

propose products and services that meet customers’ needs and wants (Roman and Iacobucci,

2010).

H7 Customers’ behavioral intentions are positively influenced by salesperson’s a)

perceived service manner, b) extra role, and c) need identification behavior.

< Insert Figure 1 about here >

All these hypotheses are shown graphically in Figure 1. Next we describe a field-survey

based study conducted with retail shoppers in Hong Kong, to test these hypotheses.

METHODOLOGY

Empirical setting

We conducted this study at the retail outlets of a major telecom company in Hong Kong,

as the frontline salespeople in these outlets not only sell products (e.g. mobile phones) and

services (e.g. phone and broadband plans) but also handle customer enquiries and complaints,

thus providing a broad range of customer interactions (Bettencourt and Brown, 1997). Moreover,

9
in this industry, salespeople need to use adaptive selling approach in their interactions with

potential customers, which means that the sales message and service offers change dynamically

based on the needs and wants communicated by customers. Finally, service encounters in retail

telecom outlets involve face-to-face interactions between customer and frontline salesperson,

giving the customers a chance to assess the various salesperson characteristics directly.

Sample and Procedure

We randomly selected 12 retail outlets (50% small to medium and 50% large size) from

the company’s network of 60 retail outlets spread across all the districts in Hong Kong, to ensure

that the responses of customers from different segments across Hong Kong could be collected.

The unit of analysis in this study is a ‘unique customer visit’. We collected a total of 186

completed questionnaires. Table 1 shows the sample profile.

< Insert Table 1 about here >

We used a structured questionnaire with three parts – Part One, with general questions

about the customer’s current visit, such as purpose of visit, nature of products and services of

interest, whether purchase was made, time spent etc.; Part Two, with questions about customer’s

perception about the visit experience based on the measurement scales indicated in the later

section of this paper, and Part Three, with demographic information such as age, gender,

education, and occupation. We first prepared an English version of the questionnaire and then

translated into Chinese by one graduate student and then back-translated into English by another

graduate student, both unaware about the purpose of this study and unrelated to this project. We

10
found no major discrepancies between the original and back-translated versions.

The final questionnaires were dispatched to the managers of the retail shops selected for

this study. To increase the reliability and generalizability of this research, we selected only those

participants (customers) who interacted with the salesperson for at least 5 minutes, regardless of

their visit purpose and whether real purchases were made. Upon completion of the questionnaire,

each participant was given a Fast Food Coupon worth HK$30.

Scales and Measures

We included the scales used by Ahearne et al. (1999) to operationalize the four

salesperson characteristics (perceived physical attractiveness, communication ability, expertise

and trustworthiness), using 7-point Likert-scales (1 = Strongly disagree to 7= Strongly agree).

Perceived employee service behavior was measured using the service manner behavior and need

identification behavior scales adapted from Lloyd and Luk (2011) and extra role service behavior

was adapted from Bettencourt and Brown (1997). Customer satisfaction and behavioral

intentions were measured using scales developed by Ramsey and Sohi (1997), and willingness to

disclose with a scale used by Cho (2006). We also included gender, age, education, visit purpose

and overall impression of the shop as control variables for the customers.

DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

We used the well-established two-step process to analyze our data, testing our

measurement model first and then the structural model, using Structure Equation Modeling

(SEM) with AMOS 18.0. We first tested the reliability of all the measures used in this study

11
using Cronbach’s alpha and found all of them higher than the minimum recommended value of

0.70 (Nunnally, 1978), indicating good internal consistency among the items of each construct.

We then assessed the relative fit through examination of item loadings of all factors. The results

demonstrate that all items loaded significantly on their respective variable with standardized

loadings > 0.70 (Hair et al, 2005). Table 2 shows the scale summary with the mean, standard

deviation, reliability and factor loading of all the scale items.

< Insert Table 2 about here >

All the parameter estimates are large with significantly large t-values (9.8 to 30.6)

(Anderson and Gerbing, 1988) with all the item-to-total correlations (0.71 to 0.95) and average

variance extracted (0.65 to 0.91) higher than 0.5, showing high convergent validity (Fornell and

Larcker, 1981). Finally, discriminant validity is confirmed as the average variance extracted in

each factor exceeds its squared correlations with all other constructs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).

We next examined the squared multiple correlations of all the scale items and eliminated four

items with values of less than 0.40 (Nunnally, 1978). The revised model provided a reasonably

good fit to the data (Chi-square = 1165.2, degrees of freedom = 634, p <0.000; CFI = 0.93, TLI =

0.93, IFI = 0.93, SRMR = 0.078 and RMSEA = 0.067).

Finally, we used the structural model to test all the hypotheses. For H1, we found that

perceived physical attractiveness has a positive relationship with salesperson’s extra role (H1b, β

= 0.172; p < 0.05) and need identification (H1c, β = 0.063; p < 0.10) behaviors but not service

manner (H1a). Similarly for H2, communication ability has a positive relationship with only

service manner (H2a, β = 0.325; p < 0.001) and need identification (H2c, β = 0.303; p < 0.001)

12
but not extra role (H2b) behaviors of the salesperson. For H3, we found positive relationship

between perceived expertise and service manner (H3a, β = 0.359; p < 0.001), extra role (H3b, β

= 0.347; p < 0.001) as well as need identification (H3c, β = 0.148; p < 0.05). For H4, we found a

significant positive relationship between perceived trustworthiness and service manner (H4a, β =

0.183; p < 0.01) and need identification (H4c, β = 0.304; p < 0.001) but not with extra role

behavior (H4b). Thus, we found mixed support for H1, H2 and H4 and full support for H3.

For the next set of hypotheses, we tested the influence of the three service behaviors on

three customer outcomes. For H5, we found that customer’s willingness to disclose personal

information was influenced by the salesperson’s service manner but in a negative direction (H5a,

β = -0.860; p < 0.001), contrary to our hypothesis. However, customer’s perception about the

salesperson’s extra role behavior (H5b, β = 0.281; p < 0.01) as well as need identification had a

strong positive effect on their willingness to disclose (H5c, β = 0.837; p < 0.001). Interestingly,

customer satisfaction was influenced by only need identification (H6c, β = .931, p < .001) and

not service manner (H6a) or extra role behavior (H6b). Similarly, behavioral intention was

affected only by need identification (H7c, β = .932, p < .001) and not by service manner (H7a) or

extra role (H7b) behaviors. Hence, we got only partial support for H5, H6 and H7.

< Insert Table 3 about here >

DISCUSSION

In this study, we examine two sets of influences in an adaptive selling context. First, we

assessed the impact of four salesperson’s attributes as perceived by their customers (physical

attractiveness, communication ability, expertise and trustworthiness) on their perceptions about

13
three types of service behaviors (service manner, extra role and need identification). Second, we

explored the influence of customer perceptions about service behaviors on three important

customer outcomes (willingness to disclose personal information, customer satisfaction and

behavioral intentions). In order to explore these relationships, we used a field-survey design with

actual customers in a real business environment, namely retail telecom outlets in Hong Kong.

The results from our field-survey seem to provide a preliminary support to our basic

premise as mentioned above. Specifically, we found that among all the four salesperson

characteristics included in our study, only their perceived expertise seems to affect customer

perceptions about all the three types of their subsequent service behaviors; whereas the other

three characteristics (physical attractiveness, communication ability and trustworthiness) only

affect some of the subsequent customer perceptions. This is an interesting finding because in the

context of retail telecom services, the customers may rely more on the perceived expertise (as

reflected in their knowledge about various plans and offers, availability of the network in

different locations and its technical aspects) rather than how good the salesperson looks or how

well s/he talks. Moreover, even trustworthiness does not seem to be a very important variable as

the service encounters happen in the retail outlets of a reputed and trusted telecom company in

Hong Kong and all the salespersons are known to represent this company.

A further look at the strength of associations among the four salesperson characteristics

with each other shows that the association between perceived communication ability and

trustworthiness is much stronger compared to physical attractiveness and expertise. This finding

may be particularly useful in the adaptive selling environment wherein it seems that rather than

only look good, the salespersons should also demonstrate their ability to identify their customers’

needs, show good communication skills throughout the interaction process, possess the required

14
knowledge and expertise about the products and service handled by them, and present

themselves as a trustworthy salesperson. This may help them customize their sales presentation

and recommend products and services that satisfy a particular customer’s specific requirements.

After the initial contact, the salespersons serve the customer and identify the products and

services that best fits customer needs. For example, they may recommend either a home

broadband or a wireless broadband service in respond to a customer’s internet service enquiry,

since both services offer broadband access. To achieve higher successful rate by introducing the

key benefits that appeal to that specific customer, the salesperson would customize the sales

message before presenting to the customer. We argued that during this interaction, an evaluation

and judgment process would take place, where the customer would evaluate the salesperson in

terms of his/her attitude and performance, and their own satisfaction level. Specifically, we

hypothesized that the three types of service behaviors (service manner, extra role and need

identification) of the salesperson would affect customer evaluation and judgments.

Our findings show that customers’ perceptions about the salesperson’s service behavior

play an important role on how they evaluate their shopping experience and their subsequent

behavioral intentions towards the salesperson and the company. Specifically, our result show

that extra role and need identification behaviors of the salesperson have a positive influence on

the customer’s willingness to disclose personal information, whereas perceived service manner is

negatively associated with disclosure. While the first two findings are as expected, the third

finding is somewhat counter-intuitive as we hypothesized service manner to also have a positive

effect on customer’s willingness to disclose personal information to facilitate the selling process.

However, prior research also shows that customers find it rather risky to disclose their personal

information to salespeople (Luo, 2002). Others argue that people tend to disclose to those whom

15
they trust and like, which may not be true with salespersons (Jourard 1964; Worthy et al. 1969).

Willingness to disclose is a key element of adaptive sales as well as the customer’s

evaluation and judgment processes. A salesperson’s ability to elicit personal information from

customer is critical in adaptive sales, so that they can change their sales messages dynamically

based on customer needs. By knowing more about customer’s expectation and the services they

need, salesperson can identify the appropriate products and service from the company’s service

offerings, and to prepare more customized selling scripts and messages to present to customers.

This is probably why in our study; service manner (a seemingly superficial act by the salesperson)

did not have a significant influence, unlike extra role and need identification behaviors (which

are possibly considered more relevant and meaningful by the customers).

Similarly, we found that only customer’s perception about the salesperson’s need

identification behavior (and not service manner and extra role) have a strong positive influence

on customer satisfaction. In other words, if customers perceive that the salesperson is able to

correctly identify their needs, they are likely to evaluate their shopping experience more

positively resulting in a higher level of satisfaction. This is particularly true in adaptive selling

environment where salesperson should adjust their sales presentation to recommend products and

services that meet customers need. Hence, it is more important that salespersons should

demonstrate their ability to proactively identify customer’s needs rather than just show courtesy

and politeness, which may be perceived as superficial or unimportant by the customers.

Finally, we found that both perceived extra role and need identification behaviors of the

salesperson have a positive impact on customer’s behavioral intentions. Specifically, customers

who perceive the salesperson to make extra efforts to serve them and identify their needs are

more likely to purchase from them and patronize them again. This is also an important finding

16
because it shows a direct link between customer perceptions about a salesperson’s extra role and

need identification behaviors and their own behavioral intentions. Therefore, managers would

find it useful to train their frontline sales and service employees to learn these important skills.

Interestingly, salesperson’s service manner behavior again does not seem to be important enough

to have a significant impact on customers’ behavioral intentions.

Overall, our research highlights that in today’s increasingly complex and competitive

marketplace, managers need to understand that it is not enough to hire good looking frontline

sales and service employees with good communication skills; instead they also need to help their

employees develop the expertise needed to do their job and address customers’ queries so as to

develop trustworthiness, especially in an adaptive sales context. Moreover, it is not enough for

the frontline employees to be well-dressed, well-mannered and polite; but they also need to make

the extra efforts to understand and satisfy their customers’ actual needs, which makes their

customers more willing to disclose their personal information, to be more satisfied and more

likely to make the purchase and patronize again, possibly becoming loyal customers over time.

Our study has some limitations that future research may address. First, our study was

conducted in a single service industry in a single city hence our model can be tested in diverse

research and cultural settings. Future research may also include other salesperson characteristics

such as their personality traits and cultural orientations. Finally, we study only the customers’

perspective in this study, hence it would be useful to the employees’ point of view as well.

17
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 Figure 1 – Conceptual Model

Physical  H1 (+)
Attractiveness
H5 (+)
Service  Willingness 
Manner to Disclose
H2 (+)
Communication 
Ability H6 (+)
Extra Role  Customer 
H3 (+) Behavior Satisfaction

Perceived 
Expertise H7 (+)
Need  Behavioral 
Identification Intentions
H4 (+)
Perceived 
Trustworthiness

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 Table 1 – Sample Profile

Demographic/ Category Frequency Percent

Control Variables (N=186)
Nationality (1) Hong Kong SAR 174 93.5%
(2) Mainland China 12 6.5%
Gender (1) Male 96 51.6%
(2) Female 90 48.4%
Age (1) <20 以下 7 3.8%
(2 ) 20 – 29 58 31.2%
(3) 30-39 57 30.6%
(4) 40 – 49 40 21.5%
(5) 50 ≥ 以上 24 12.9%
Education (1) ≤Secondary School 85 45.7%
(2) College 60 32.3%
(3) > College 25 13.4%
(4) Others 16 8.6%
Occupation (1) Technician/blue-collar 11 5.9%
(2) Professional 30 16.1%
(3) Manager/Executive 20 10.8%
(4) Salespersons 36 19.4%
(5) Self-employed 17 9.1%
(6) Civil servant 22 11.8%
(7) Housewife 27 14.5%
(8) Student 6 3.2%
(9) Retiree/unemployed 8 4.3%
(10) Others 9 4.8%
Monthly Household (1) ≤HK$10,000 以下 39 21%
Income (2)HK$10,001 – $30,000 121 65.1%
(3) ≥ HK$30,001 以上 26 14%
Visit Purpose Make an enquiry 105 56%
Make a purchase 81 44%
Overall Impression High Impression 104 56%
of the shop Low impression 82 44%

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 Table 2 - Scale Summary

Factor Mean Item-to-

Scale Items loadings (M) SD total
correlation
Perceived Attractiveness (Ahearne et al., 1999) – Reliability (α) = 0.85
1. Is very good-looking 0.93 5.67 1.09 0.81
2. Has an attractive appearance 0.94 5.54 1.12 0.85
3. Would generally be thought of as beautiful / handsome 0.76 5.34 1.10 0.73
Communication Ability (Ahearne et al., 1999) – Reliability (α) = 0.85
4. Wastes time talking about unimportant issues 0.65 6.17 0.95 0.60
5. Listens to my needs / concerns 0.88 6.00 1.04 0.77
6. Tailors his / her presentations to my need 0.87 6.1 0.94 0.75
Perceived Expertise (Ahearne et al., 1999) – Reliability (α) = 0.92
7. Understands my needs 0.80 6.05 1.06 0.76
8. Is an excellent source of information about the 0.95 6.05 0.92 0.89
products/services he / she represents
9. Is able to recommend products and service for dealing 0.87 6.04 0.91 0.82
with difficult cases
10. Is knowledgeable about the products and services 0.87 6.08 0.93 0.84
Perceived Trustworthiness (Ahearne et al., 1999) – Reliability (α) = 0.78
11. Is always honest in his/her dealings with me 0.85 6.10 1.01 0.71
12. Is someone I feel I can trust 0.91 6.18 0.88 0.76
13. Never tries to mislead me 0.65 5.80 1.38 0.57
Willingness to disclose personal information (Cho, 2006) – Reliability (α) = 0.91
14. I am willing to provide my personal information when 0.89 5.68 1.39 0.83
asked by this sales representative
15. I am willing to disclose even sensitive personal 0.88 5.27 1.57 0.84
information to this sales representative for the purpose of
fulfilling my order
16. I am willing to be truthful in revealing my personal 0.89 5.68 1.40 0.82
information to this sales representative
Customer satisfaction (Ramsey and Sohi 1997) – Reliability (α) = 0.91
17. The amount of contact I have had with this salesperson 0.74 7.93 1.73 0.72
was adequate

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18. I am satisfied with the level of service this person has 0.97 8.50 1.38 0.87
provided
19. In general, I am pretty satisfied with my dealings with 0.97 8.58 1.37 0.88
this salesperson
Behavioral intentions (Ramsey and Sohi, 1997) - Reliability (α) = 0.98
20. It is probable that I will contact this salesperson again 0.92 8.40 1.64 0.93
21. I am willing to discuss business with this salesperson 0.93 8.48 1.61 0.94
again
22. I plan to continue doing business with this salesperson 0.98 8.41 1.61 0.95
23. I will purchase from this salesperson again 0.98 8.41 1.61 0.95
Service Manner Behavior (Lloyd and Luk, 2011) - Reliability (α) = 0.95
24. The service employee showed patience 0.91 6.17 0.82 0.86
25. The service employee was helpful 0.88 6.17 0.88 0.85
26. The service employee smiled at me 0.82 6.16 0.91 0.83
27. The service employee was polite 0.84 6.30 0.81 0.82
28. The service employee was relaxing to interact with 0.82 6.16 0.97 0.80
29. The service employee showed passion for their job 0.78 6.15 0.84 0.78
30. The service employee was cheerful 0.78 6.13 0.87 0.78
Need identification Behavior (Lloyd and Luk, 2011) - Reliability (α) = 0.85
31. The service employee understood my needs 0.75 6.16 0.88 0.71
32. The service employee was knowledgeable 0.76 6.20 0.87 0.71
33. The service employee anticipated my needs 0.84 6.09 0.84 0.71
Extra-Role Service Behavior (Bettencourt and Brown, 1997) - Reliability (α) = 0.94
34. Voluntarily assists customers even if it means going 0.76 5.62 1.13 0.75
beyond job requirements.
35. Helps customers with problems beyond what is expected 0.83 5.67 1.06 0.81
or required
36. Often goes above and beyond the call of duty when 0.91 5.42 1.25 0.87
serving customers
37. Willingly goes out of his/her way to make a customer 0.91 5.65 1.14 0.87
satisfied
38. Frequently goes out the way to help a customer 0.95 5.49 1.18 0.90

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 Table 3 – Hypotheses and Results Summary

Hypo Std. beta Results

Hypothesized Relationship
# Coeff.
H1a Physical Attractiveness → Service Manner 0.022 NS
H1b Physical Attractiveness → Extra Role 0.172* Supported
H1c Physical Attractiveness → Need Identification 0.063# Supported
H2a Communication Ability → Service Manner 0.325*** Supported
H2b Communication Ability → Extra Role 0.155 NS
H2c Communication Ability → Need Identification 0.303*** Supported
H3a Expertise → Service Manner 0.359*** Supported
H3b Expertise → Extra Role 0.347* Supported
H3c Expertise → Need Identification 0.148* Supported
H4a Trustworthiness → Service Manner 0.183** Supported
H4b Trustworthiness → Extra Role 0.087 NS
H4c Trustworthiness → Need Identification 0.304*** Supported
H5a Service Manner → Willingness to Disclose -0.860** Supported
H5b Extra Role → Willingness to Disclose 0.281** Supported
H5c Need Identification → Willingness to Disclose 0.837*** Supported
H6a Service Manner → Customer satisfaction -0.198 NS
H6b Extra Role → Customer satisfaction 0.070 NS
H6c Need Identification → Customer satisfaction 0.954*** Supported
H7a Service Manner → Behavioral intentions -0.181 NS
H7b Extra Role → Behavioral intentions 0.207** Supported
H7c Need Identification → Behavioral intentions 0.932*** Supported

# p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, all two-tailed
NS = Not Supported

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