Listening and perseverance – two sides to a coin in quality evaluations

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how a service provider’s offer quality is evaluated (OQ).This study shows that attitude toward the salesperson in a service context (AS) is an important antecedent to OQ. Design/methodology/approach This study involves three studies, first is a dyadic data analyzed with HLM, second is an experiment and the third an IAT. Findings The findings of this study show that active empathetic listening increases offer quality evaluations, regardless of the AS level. However, at lower levels of AS, sales perseverance negatively affects offer quality evaluations. Originality/value While research suggests that listening is extremely important, there is also research that suggests that perseverance is more important. Considering data from sales people and from consumers, the authors examine when listening and when perseverance is important.