Four Positive Effects of a Salesperson’s Regional Dialect in Services Selling

Abstract

This research analyzes how a salesperson’s regional dialect influences the efficacy of services selling. Four dialect effects are derived from theories of information processing, accent prestige theory, and social identity theory. In the first study, 92 industrial buyers, and in the second study, 126 customers evaluated salespersons after actual sales conversations. In contrast to conventional wisdom, both studies show that buyers do not generally devalue salespersons with a dialect. If speech is of high quality, a regional dialect improves satisfaction with the salesperson, rather than reducing it. Favorable sound qualities and prestigious stereotypical associations with the dialect also raise satisfaction with the salesperson. Moreover, the fit between salesperson and buyer dialects enhances satisfaction with the company and fosters purchase intention. In order to increase their persuasiveness, salespersons should be aware of the four dialect effects. Companies would also benefit from training salespersons to improve their speech quality, rather than concealing their dialect. If possible, salespersons should deliberately modify their way of speaking in all phases of the service-selling process.

The Effect of Interviewers’ and Respondents’ Accent and Gender on Willingness to Cooperate in Telephone Surveys

“…Our result that agreement between interviewer and respon-dent in language variety did not increase cooperativeness (expectation 4a and b) is not consistent with what we expected on the basis of the study of Mai & Hoffmann (2011) who found that agreement between salesperson and consumer in language variety increased purchase intention. Durrant et al (2010) also found that agreement between interviewer and respondent in a number of attributes increases response rate, although they did not study agreement in language variety.…”

“…Apropos of accent, this implies that interviewers who use the standard variety should have more success with respondents who also speak the standard variety than with respondents who have a regional accent, and interviewers with a regional accent should be more successful with respondents who have the same accent than with respondents who speak the standard language. The positive effect of agreement between people in a negotiation situation is, for example, found by Mai & Hoffmann (2011) in their studies of language use in service selling. When there was a fit between the dialect of the salesperson and the dialect of the client, purchase intention increased.…”

The Effect of Perceived Regional Accents on Individual Economic Behavior: A Lab Experiment on Linguistic Performance, Cognitive Ratings and Economic Decisions

“…The identifying potential of language has recently attracted researchers from different fields, including linguists [ 4 , 5 ], psychologists [ 6 , 7 ] and economists [ 8 , 9 ]. Measuring the effect of language on social behavior and individual interaction is however very difficult, given its dependence on specific contexts and individual preconditions.…”

“…It turns out that listening to non-native or regional accents can invoke judgments about the credibility of speakers [ 7 , 10 ], their character traits and cognitive capacities [ 6 , 11 ], or even influence the perception of facts in criminal cases [ 12 , 13 ]. There is also evidence that the use of an accent can imply strategic advantages, e.g., in sales conversations [ 9 ] or job interviews [ 14 ], where accents suggest a joint identity. What remains open is to what extent attitudes really suit the action.…”

Services Marketing Within Business-to-Business Context: A Content Analysis of 1996 – 2014 Period

“…The remaining studies are related with relationship quality (Palmatier, 2008;Boles et al 2000;Koku, 2009). There were few studies regarding other issues like personal selling (Sharma, 2007;Mai and Hoffmann, 2011), servitization (Raddats and Easingwood, 2010).…”