Interest and expertise: On the effects of salesperson and customer characteristics in a consumer goods purchasing situation

Sammanfattning: It is well established that a salesperson's expertise and vocational interests are predictive of their job performance. Still, these have not been studied simultaneously and from the perspective of the customer. The purpose of this thesis was to study how salesperson and customer characteristics interact in provoking customer responses in service encounters. Through a survey-based experiment with ratings from 113 participants, it was tested how different combinations of perceived employee interest and perceived employee expertise influenced customer satisfaction in a consumer goods purchasing situation. The experiment also examined whether the results differed depending on the customer's self-assessed level of expertise. Results indicated that higher employee expertise and/or interest both increased the customer's level of satisfaction. Novice customers reacted more strongly than expert customers to different levels of employee expertise, while employee interest was found equally important for both novice and expert customers. The data was examined through statistical analysis involving comparisons of mean group differences. Although the results were deemed rather robust, further research is needed and invited. Implications for recruitment procedures and employee training programs as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.