THE COMMUNICATION STYLE MATTERS: IMPROVING SALES EFFECTIVENESS BY USING SOCIOMETRIC SENSORS
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The essence of any successful personal selling interaction is effective communication. Evidence from research on personal selling has provided extensive support for the effectiveness of nonverbal communication. Nevertheless, an individuals’ nonverbal communication style is difficult to measure during a sales conversation, as it is “encoded and decoded unconsciously” (Stewart, Hecker, & Graham, 1987, p. 305). This research introduces wearable sensor technology as a novel and objective approach for measuring nonverbal behaviors (i.e., kinesics, paralanguage, and proxemics) in a sales context using sociometric badges (Kim, McFee, Olguin, Waber, & Pentland, 2012). Findings reveal that salespeople can improve their appeal by making use of a more dynamic communication style (i.e., enhanced posture activity and variation in speech and volume), as opposed to a rather static, adhesive, and monotone communication. We contribute to the sales literature by relating a salesperson’s nonverbal communication behaviors to customer responses. In addition, we reveal various implications for sales executives and offer guidance on how to improve their sales effectiveness and performance.