Resistance in Business-to-Business “Cold” Sales Calls

Abstract

In “cold” sales calls, the salesperson's job is to turn call-takers, or “prospects,” into clients while, very often, the latter resist them. In contrast to laboratory-based research, “cold” calls provide a natural environment where the stakes are real and resistance is manifest. We collected and transcribed 159 “cold” calls the goal of which was for salespeople to secure an appointment to meet prospects. Using discursive psychology and conversation analysis, we identified two practices—“blocks” and “stalls”—through which prospects resisted salespeople's attempts to schedule a sales appointment while also moving to terminate the interaction or delay the scheduling of an eventual appointment. Our findings show that, when approached as an interactive and situated discursive accomplishment, rather than a cognitive process, the practices involved in resisting can be better identified, described, and shared in ways that transform our understanding of resistance as a social psychological phenomenon.

Phase Structure and Resistance to Progressivity in Complaints Calls to the NHS

“…The distinction between weak/passive resistance and strong/active resistance has also been examined in relation to progressivity. For example, Joyce's (2020) analysis of resistance in public disputes differentiates passive resistant responses that “stall the progressivity of the interactional trajectory” and active resistant responses that “outrightly suspend the progressivity of the interaction” (p. 245). Humā and Stokoe's analysis of resistance in unsolicited sales calls (this issue) reveals a similar distinction between “ blocks , that close down the ongoing course of action as well as the broader commercial activity, and stalls that slow down the progress of the sale.”…”

“…In examining how callers work to get to tell their complaint story, we build on and contribute to conversation analytic (CA) work on resistance as an interactional and, more specifically, sequential phenomenon (Humă & Stokoe, 2023; Joyce, 2020) that necessarily interacts with progressivity. We also draw on prior work that demonstrates how the extra-sequential properties of projects and identities interact with the sequential organization of a “project-based” institutional call (Raymond & Zimmerman, 2016).…”