Customers' judgment of the customer service in appliance sales departments in an emerging economy

Evidence that consumers in emerging economies are more tolerant of ineffective customer service (CS), instigated an investigation into controllable elements of the service offering in a specific context in South Africa, namely, appliances sales departments in retail stores. The research aimed to identify possible shortcomings in CS amidst evidence that consumers are exposed to sophisticated merchandise that they have limited experience and understanding of. The intention was to suggest initiatives to augment the service offering so that it becomes more conducive for informed, responsible buying decisions. Household appliances represent a category of complex, durable and expensive merchandise that require more extensive information search before concluding buying decisions. A survey was done in 2007 through a pre‐tested structured questionnaire. Several branches of five prominent department stores were involved through liaison with industry. A store intercept method was used to recruit respondents: 296 questionnaires were filled in on the spot under supervision. Three sections of the questionnaire are relevant for this report: (1) consumers' satisfaction with CS; (2) a product knowledge test; and (3) demographic information. Factor analysis revealed a reduction of the original five elements of CS in the scale to three distinct elements that were labelled Personnel, Processes and Value for Money, and Product Presentation. The simpler scale suggests a less intricate judgment of CS in the context of this research. Means indicated that consumers were generally satisfied with all elements of CS, i.e. the service offering coincided with their expectations. Analysis of variance indicated no significant differences in the interpretation of any of the elements of CS by gender. A significant inverse relationship between satisfaction with CS and years of experience occurred for respondents with more than 25 years of experience in terms of Personnel (Element 1) and Processes and Value for Money (Element 2). Findings of the product knowledge tests were meant to verify consumers' CS judgments. However, scores were disappointingly low for all appliances across all respondent categories. Consumers' product knowledge could therefore not have supported informed buying decisions, despite prior experience and the opportunity to acquire additional product information during the in‐store encounter. Consumers' positive CS judgments suggest that they not necessarily realize their lack of crucial product knowledge. In the interest of informed and responsible buying decisions that have consequences for proper use and maintenance of appliances in the long term, retail stores that serve a broad customer base are encouraged to attend to in‐store customer assistance during the pre‐purchase phase, notwithstanding positive CS judgments. Non‐formal consumer education by competent, well‐trained salespeople is recommended to encourage evaluative rational product judgments. It is also suggested that store displays are designed to encourage consumers to be more inquisitive during store visits.     

Self-managing selling teams and team performance: The complementary roles of empowerment and control

This work is the first to examine systematically the influence of empowerment and control on the degree to which selling teams engage in desired self-managing behaviors. Further, this work is the first to propose the construct of desired self-managing behaviors in a selling team context, and empirically examine its influence on selling team performance. Our investigation indicates that control of team self-management provides a complementary positive influence to that of empowerment on the degree to which selling teams exhibit desired self-managing behaviors. In addition, we find a positive relationship between the degree to which teams exhibit desired self-managing behaviors and selling team performance; moreover, this relationship explains, to a large degree, selling team performance. These findings are consistent with our thesis that control of teamwork facilitates performance on the selling team level, just as control of selling skills facilitates performance on the individual sales rep level.     

冲货的成因及对策

冲货,就是跨区销售,是渠道管理的瓶颈问题,也是目前许多企业甚至一些知名企业销售工作中遇到的顽疾之一。文章对冲货的分类、危害、成因及如何治理作了有益探索。     

Optimal sale across venues and auctions with a buy-now option

We characterize the optimal selling mechanism for a seller who faces demand demarcated by a high and a low end and who can access an (online) auction site (by paying an access cost) in addition to using his own store that can be used as a posted price selling venue. We first solve for the optimal mechanism of a direct revelation game in which there is no venue-restriction constraint. We find that the direct optimal mechanism must necessarily incorporate a certain kind of pooling. We then show that even with the venue constraint, the seller can use a two stage indirect mechanism that implements the allocation rule from the optimal direct mechanism, and uses the venues in an optimal fashion. The first stage of the indirect mechanism is a posted price at the store. If the object is not sold, we move to stage two, which involves an auction at the auction site. A feature of this auction is a buy-now option which is essential for implementing the pooling feature of the optimal direct mechanism. We also show that the buy-now option in the optimal mechanism is of a “temporary” variety, and that a “permanent” buy-now option, in contrast, cannot implement the optimal mechanism. Auctions with a temporary buy-now option are in widespread use on eBay. We thank the Associate Editor, George Deltas, for his insightful comments. We also thank seminar participants at the University of Basel and the SAET conference 2007.     

A Note on the Earnings of Real Estate Salespersons and others in the Financial Services Industry

The earnings of females in various sales professions are less than their male counterparts. By expanding on the set of variables used by Jud and Winkler we were able to explain a large portion of this differential for most professions. Child rearing and marriage explain much of the differential in income in business sales outside of real estate. These variables fail to explain the remaining large gap in real estate sales, however.     

巧干、苦干还是社会网络致胜——直销企业销售代表绩效影响因素研究

中国直销企业以销售为基础,存在大量销售代表,每年对销售代表投入的筛选、培训、维护费用巨大,但其产出效果并不理想。本研究旨在研究影响直销企业销售代表绩效的关键因素,并识别出销售代表个性特质与这些影响因素的关系。实证研究表明,销售代表适应性销售行为、工作勤奋度、个人社会网络和年龄对销售绩效有显著正向影响;销售代表自我监控和学习导向越强,则越能表现出适应性销售行为;适应性销售行为是自我监控和学习导向对销售绩效影响的中介变量。     

After‐sales services of home appliances: evidence from Sri Lanka

The provision of after‐sales services is considered as a source of product differentiation leading to competitive advantage of a firm. As a consequence, there is a need of monitoring and measuring the activities of after‐sales service departments to ensure that the objectives of their existence are satisfied. Yet, it is very rare to find previous studies that investigated after‐sales service provision. We investigated different dimensions of after‐sales service provision of home appliances in the Sri Lankan context. The study operationalized different dimensions of after‐sales service provision from three different perspectives and used multiple parameters to evaluate the nature of provision.     

基于B/S结构的销售管理系统

销售是供应链管理的重要环节,也是企业生产、管理、运作的关键。随着Internet的迅猛发展,新经济时代的销售是一个动态、渐进的过程,基于B/S结构的销售管理系统接受并应用流行于国际企业的现代营销管理的新方法,即"客户关系管理(CRM)",使销售从无序的管理走向更科学的管理,使管理者更能把握业务的中心。本文对基于B/S结构的销售管理系统的组成、功能、特点等进行了进一步的探讨。     

Expectational data and Japanese stock prices

This paper examines the impact of a change in analysts' forecasts of earnings and sales per share on the subsequent price performance of a large sample of Japanese stocks. Changes in earnings and sales estimates affect price and the impact is incorporated slowly over time. This lag can be utilized to construct a portfolio of securities which while acting like an index fund earns an excess (extra) return.     

Housing Quality in the Forward Contracts Market

Developers often conduct forward sales (or presales) before building completion to relieve financial risk and burden. However, there are worries that housing units sold in this way will turn out to be substandard because developers, who have been paid for the unfinished units, may have incentives to cut costs by lowering the quality. This is a typical moral hazard problem. Nonetheless, forward sales have been very popular in some Asian cities such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. A plausible explanation is that the market has efficiently adjusted the forward price for this potential quality problem according to developers’ reputations. This paper aims to theoretically explain and empirically test (1) whether reputation is reflected in forward prices and (2) whether the expected quality level matches with the actual quality level. Using the forward and spot sales data of the Hong Kong real estate market, we found that even though housing quality was not observable during presales, the market was able to capitalize developers’ reputations into forward prices accurately. This suggests that the optimal strategy for developers is to stick to the quality level implied by their reputations. A paper submitted to Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. A Special Issue for the 2005 NUS-HKU Symposium on Real Estate Research.