ar to grow the business and make profits. If the industry were to wait for the phone to ring without having a sales person, the company would be out of business in a flash. The sales person becomes an advisor by helping a potential customer understand complex topics such as warranties and certified pre-owned vehicles. It is rightly a relationship grounded in face-to-face human dialogue and interaction. It’s a give and take of the needs and desires of the customer and the capabilities of the sales person to meet them Brown (2001). There are certain benefits that can only be attained form interaction with a salesperson. According to Johnson (1994) these benefits include the criticality of the human element, enhancing of consumer confidence, the immediate manner in which customers can act and treating of customers as individuals. Sales people and customers deal with each other face to face. For instance a computer system sales person will be involved in the installation of the system and subsequent system modification long after the purchase order has being signed. Familiarity, if not friendship, develops between the sales person and customer. The sales person becomes the company for the customer. Buyers do not deal just with an inanimate business organization but with human beings from that company whom they see personally and know. Since personal contacts are involved it is more difficult for buyers to ignore or remove the sales influence (in contrast to advertising message, which can be easily turned off). Since the customer deals with a supplier through a person, there is great potential for building the customer confidence in the supplier’s products, personnel, and procedures. Of course, the sales representative can muff this opportunity in many ways, such as making promises that cannot be kept or misrepresenting the product. However if done properly personal selling offers the opportunity for the sales perso...
