Marie-Cécile Cervellon
email: marie-cecile.cervellon@edhec.edu

Juliet F Poujol

J F Tanner
email: jtanner@odu.edu

2008 Constant

Judging by the Watch: Salespersons' Responses to Status Signals and Stereotypes of Luxury Clients

Keywords: customer stereotypes, interpersonal orientation, status, gender, luxury retail, luxury car industry

This paper investigates how the activation of a customer stereotype affects salespersons' interpersonal orientation in the context of luxury car purchases. The results of three complementary studies (observation in-situ, survey among luxury car clients, lab-experiment among apprentice-salespeople) indicate that status trumps gender; Gender-stereotypes are activated only when status is not, indicating the expectancy-based nature of sales stereotyping. Our research highlights the mechanism that leads to privileged behaviors: salespeople attribute a higher purchase budget to clients with visible signs of status. Addressing changes in customer orientation is particularly important in luxury retail settings where service excellence is a priority.

Introduction

In the movie Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts' character enters a luxury boutique and is snubbed by the sales staff because she appears to lack sufficient financial resources. If such discriminatory behavior based on stereotypes occurs regularly, luxury retailers may experience inconsistent brand performance and lose sales-or possibly gain sales. In the context of the car sector, salespeople might judge prospects by their wristwatches. Wearing a Rolex, for example, might signal financial well-being and a higher likelihood to purchase an expensive car. Yet, the presence or lack of an expensive wristwatch might be misleading, particularly when dealing with younger generations who have unconventional purchasing behaviors; these people are less reluctant to mix and match cheaper brands with luxury ones compared to their senior cohorts. At the same time, to more efficiently manage the sales process, salespeople have to make judgments about the sales potential of prospectsjudgments that may be based on segmentation. Segmenting markets leads to more frequent use of efficient selling patterns, such as deciding which features to emphasize early on in a conversation with a prospect. This, in turn, leads to higher sales.

Stereotyping is the process of ascribing characteristics to a person based on traits and behaviors assigned to a group [START_REF] Cowart | Pleasantly plump: Offsetting negative obesity stereotypes for frontline service employees[END_REF]. Stereotypes are "widely shared assumptions about certain types of people" (Babin et al., 1995, p. 95). The assumptions are commonly formed on the basis of a person's age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or social class and serve as cognitive economizers [START_REF] Babin | Salesperson stereotypes, consumer emotions, and their impact on information processing[END_REF], providing immediate access to information about an individual. Empirical investigations that the use of stereotypes increases when people are pressured for time [START_REF] Freund | The freezing and unfreezing of impressional primacy: Effects of the need for structure and the fear of invalidity[END_REF]). Yet stereotypes are a simplification of reality, limit information processing, and lead to stereotype-based behaviors.

Because stereotyping is a form of cognitive economizing in which many stimuli are reduced to one conclusion, salespeople may benefit from using stereotypes as they become reinforced over time by patterns of sales success and failure. The minute a customer enters a store, salespeople might form an impression based on readily available information such as a person's gender or status signals, and then adapt their investment in the selling process based on the rapid judgments they form [START_REF] Evans | How first impressions of a customer impact effectiveness in an initial sales encounter[END_REF]. Although a salesperson's impressions of a customer may change during the sales encounter, initially categorizing him or her may help the salesperson size up a customer prior to any interchange. The first impressions provide a frame of reference that directs the initial buyer-seller interaction (Macan & Dipboye, 1988;[START_REF] Bergeron | A comparison of the effects of the first impression and the last impression in a selling context[END_REF]. The categorization process might lead to positive discriminating behaviors, such as offering a customer a lower price or prioritizing his or her service. Or, the categorization could lead to negative discriminating behaviors, such as making the client wait for service [START_REF] Ainscough | Will you help me please? The effects of race, gender and manner of dress on retail service[END_REF][START_REF] Bone | Rejected, shackled, and alone: The impact of systemic restricted choice on minority consumers' construction of self[END_REF]. Positive discriminating behaviors are important because it has been demonstrated that employee proactivity, or being able to plan in advance rather than adapting and reacting to situations, has a strong impact on customer satisfaction [START_REF] Söderlund | The proactive employee on the floor of the store and the impact on customer satisfaction[END_REF][START_REF] Lau | Ethical work climate, employee commitment and proactive customer service performance: Test of the mediating effects of organizational politics[END_REF].

Our research uses interpersonal orientation theory [START_REF] Humphreys | Exploring the relative effects of salesperson interpersonal process attributes and technical product attributes on customer satisfaction[END_REF] to investigate the effects of activating a consumer stereotype based on wealth when it comes to a luxury retail salespersons' service delivery. As far as we know, our research is the first to examine the impact of social status stereotypes on retail salespeople's interpersonal orientations, reactivity, and preferential treatment of prospects. The research setting is the luxury car industry, due to the importance of interpersonal interactions in the car selling process and the luxury purchase ceremony (Cervellon & Courdriet 2013). The research setting is also important due to the potential stigmas surrounding women drivers and unprofitable clients. The selling ceremony, that is, the diligence and ritual surrounding how welcome prospects are made to feel, is crucial to reassure them and make them feel like valued potential customers. At the same time, the selling ceremony provides an opportunity to observe how salespeople alter how they treat prospects due to stereotyping. This paper presents a series of three complementary studies intended to assess through an interpersonal orientation lens the extent to which luxury retail salespeople engage in customer stereotyping and the effects of such stereotyping. These different methodological approaches allowed us to study the topic from different perspectives: the perspective of salespersons as a result of a lab experiment, the perspective of the clients as a result of a customer survey, and a more objective approach based on measures and observations of how different customers are treated at a car dealership. This multimethod approach strengthens the reliability of our findings. The current set of studies offers both academic and managerial implications for how salespeople are recruited, trained, and managed, particularly in luxury retail and service settings, where research is very limited.

Literature Review

Interpersonal Orientation and the Assessment of Service Quality

In luxury industries, store environments play a central role in communicating a brand's identity and reinforcing it on each customer's visit [START_REF] Ehbauer | Measuring and managing service performance of luxury stores: Development of a balanced scorecard[END_REF]. In luxury fashion retail settings, brand ideology is conveyed to consumers through the magic of store design [START_REF] Dion | Retail luxury strategy: Assembling charisma through art and magic[END_REF]. In addition, the brand is embodied and magnified through the sales ambassadors and the selling ceremony (Cervellon & Courdriet, 2013). Salespeople do not simply transact a luxury-good sale but play an important role in delivering a unique, extraordinary experience any time a customer enters the store. Indeed, the contact time with the customer is generally long and based on trust [START_REF] Abbes | How salespersons induce trust between consumers and retailers: The case of French well-being stores[END_REF]. Clients are extremely demanding, expect personal attention, and recognition (Cervellon & Courdriet, 2013;[START_REF] Ehbauer | Measuring and managing service performance of luxury stores: Development of a balanced scorecard[END_REF]. At the same time, salespeople have to maintain a certain distance with clients as a sign of deference [START_REF] Ward | Should the devil sell Prada? Retail rejection increases aspiring consumers' desire for the brand[END_REF].

Luxury goods and services are a context in which interpersonal orientation should be high. Interpersonal orientation, a concept developed for business-to-business sales by [START_REF] Humphreys | Exploring the relative effects of salesperson interpersonal process attributes and technical product attributes on customer satisfaction[END_REF], is part of the customer orientation (CO) framework and focuses attention on the process by which salespeople interact with buyers. The interpersonal orientation corresponds to the "soft quality" and more specifically to "the individualized customer attention to solve the buyer's need and to the salesperson's desire to provide friendly and expedient service" (Humphreys & Williams, 1996, p.50). The interpersonal orientation construct also corresponds to the reliability and empathy dimensions of service delivery discussed by [START_REF] Parasuraman | Servqual: A multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality[END_REF]. The construct includes the salesperson's (1) consideration for the client; (2) ability to respond quickly to the client's requests; (3) willingness to satisfy customers; (4) creativity in meeting clients' needs; and (5) ability to do the job right the first time [START_REF] Humphreys | Exploring the relative effects of salesperson interpersonal process attributes and technical product attributes on customer satisfaction[END_REF]. In business-to-business settings, those interpersonal processes have a higher impact on customer satisfaction than tangible elements such as a product's technical features, added-value attributes (warranties etc.), or price [START_REF] Humphreys | Exploring the relative effects of salesperson interpersonal process attributes and technical product attributes on customer satisfaction[END_REF]. Interpersonal processes add value to the salesperson performance: salespeople are able to attend to clients' needs in a faster and more precise way.

In luxury industries, customer satisfaction is not driven by tangible features (such as price promotions) but by the quality of the client's experience in a store, which depends on the person's interaction with the store's sales staff at the point of sale [START_REF] Lent | Selling Luxury: Connect with Affluent Customers, Create Unique Experiences Through Impeccable Service, and Close the Sale[END_REF].

In the car industry, several studies highlight the importance of the interpersonal orientation and being customer oriented as well as being committed to the satisfaction of the customer rather than one's own short-term self-interest [START_REF] Saxe | The SOCO scale: A measure of customer orientation of salespeople[END_REF]. A study of 522 car buyers confirms the positive relationship between the customer orientation of salespeople, how satisfied customers are with their salespeople, a car dealer, and ultimately the car's manufacturer [START_REF] Goff | The influence of salesperson selling behaviors on customer satisfaction with products[END_REF]. Two other studies also underscore the fundamental role automobile salespeople play in terms of customer satisfaction and loyalty [START_REF] Spaulding | Selling automobile at retail: Is empathy important?[END_REF][START_REF] Lee | The role of emotion in the relationship between customers and automobile salespeople[END_REF]). Yet, despite research that points to the role salespeople play when it comes to the satisfaction of customers and the car dealers they choose to patronize, professional reports indicate that more than a quarter of customers who leave a dealership without buying a vehicle do so primarily because they don't like the way the sales staff conducted the sales process [START_REF] Darley | Exploring the relationship of perceived automotive salesperson attributes, customer satisfaction and intentions to automotive service department patronage: The moderating role of customer gender[END_REF]. Whatever the selling process that led to these failures, the salesperson likely did not adapt to customers' expectations regarding the relationship. Further, these studies identified, from the consumer's perspective, the importance of the interpersonal orientation but did not establish causes of better or worse interpersonal orientation.

Interpersonal Orientation and Consumer Stereotypes

In retail, the highest performing salespersons tailor the selling episode not only to the individual needs of each customer but also to each consumer's unique purchasing process [START_REF] Spiro | Adaptive selling: Conceptualization, measurement and nomological validity[END_REF]. Accurately perceiving customers is therefore critical to the effective use of interpersonal selling [START_REF] Sharma | How accurate are salespersons' perceptions of their customers?[END_REF]. Salespeople (1) develop impressions of the customer decision process; (2) formulate strategies and develop messages for each customer; (3) transmit the messages; (4) evaluate customer reactions to their sales presentation; and (5) make appropriate adjustments to the message. This sequence of events highlights the importance of the salesperson's perceptions of the customer [START_REF] Sharma | How accurate are salespersons' perceptions of their customers?[END_REF] and the effect on customer orientation [START_REF] Crosby | Relationship quality in services selling an interpersonal influence perspective[END_REF]. The difficulty for a salesperson is to get the right impression of the customer, which is particularly difficult in the first selling episode. Customers might be willing to visit the showroom several times before purchasing a vehicle or they already have a good sense of what they want to purchase.

The best salespersons are able to adapt the selling episode to customers' needs but also to different customers' journeys. Stereotype-based behaviors might occur during the first visit.

Later on, salespeople adjust their perceptions, and their service delivery is less likely to be less negatively affected as a result.

In the process of understanding the needs of clients, salespeople might use a number of mechanisms to help them adapt quickly to different clientele. One of those mechanisms involves relying on readily accessible information, such as visual signs of a client's age, gender or wealth. Marketplace discrimination, which involves treating customers differently in the marketplace based on their perceived group-level traits, is then common during service encounters [START_REF] Walsh | Disadvantaged consumers' experiences of marketplace discrimination in customer services[END_REF]. A stereotype that might affect the quality of the salesperson-client relationship, particularly in the luxury industry, is the social-class stereotype. Classism involves stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination based on a person's socioeconomic status.

Classist stereotypes involve beliefs attributed to individuals given their membership in a socioeconomic status category (Fiske, 1998). People seem to form impressions of others' status based, in part, on how they dress [START_REF] Johnson | Appearance and dress as a source of information: A qualitative approach to data collection[END_REF]. For example, an employee may conclude that a guest belongs to an upper class based on the way that person dresses. Once the employee has assigned the guest to a class, the employee may provide a different service level based on the hypothetical expectations about that guest.

Research indicates that like peacocks' tales, men might use luxury goods and clothes as signals of status, power, and financial dominance (Nelissen & Meijers, 2011). Today, anyone can own a purse, a watch, or a pair of shoes, yet specific brands of purses, watches, and shoes are discriminant signals of having social status [START_REF] Han | Signaling status with luxury goods: The role of brand prominence[END_REF]. Based on the preceding literature, we propose that in the context of a luxury retail setting, salespeople might adapt their service delivery to the social signals they identify. If the signals indicate that a customer's social status is high, this stereotype should positively affect the interpersonal orientation the client receives, his or her service quality, and likelihood to get preferential treatment.

H1a. Stereotyping a customer as having a high social status will positively affect a salesperson's interpersonal orientation, H1b. Stereotyping a customer as having a high social status will result in the customer waiting less before being served.

H1c. Stereotyping a customer as having a high social status will increase the likelihood of the customer getting preferential treatment (a price offer and a test drive)

Status signaling might lead to preferential treatments such as service priority (Nelissen & Meijers, 2011). [START_REF] Arnold | Customer delight in a retail context: Investigating delightful and terrible shopping experiences[END_REF] reported that casually dressed potential customers felt ignored by salespeople. In the same vein, Paulins' ( 2005) research indicates that service quality in retail stores, measured through the SERVQUAL, is higher for students dressed in business attire than for students dressed in casual attire. In the context of a luxury environment, we argue that clients who signal status by wearing luxury attire are judged to be more profitable customers, leading to better interpersonal relations with salespeople, and preferential treatments, such as being served faster and rewarded with a test drive. This mechanism (estimating a customer's budget based on the status she or he signals) provides an explanation for the differences in service delivery between customers.

H2. Estimating a customer's budget does correlate to status stereotype-based behavior

Figure 1 encapsulates the hypotheses and relationships proposed between a customer's perceived budget and a salesperson's status stereotype activation and service delivery. Research has studied the effect of gender stereotyping on the interpersonal orientation of salespeople. In terms of customer service, [START_REF] Walsh | Disadvantaged consumers' experiences of marketplace discrimination in customer services[END_REF] found that male employees hold sexist opinions and treat women differently than they do men, perhaps because they believe women have less power, less status, and lower salaries than men [START_REF] Eagly | Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles[END_REF]. In the context of this research, we propose that in luxury car sector, customers' genders might interact with their statuses and affect a salesperson's interpersonal orientation: Consequently, being a male should reinforce the benefits of status signaling when a customer is purchasing a luxury car. We also investigate other indicators, such as the customer's wait time and whether or not the person was offered a test drive, might indicate preferential treatment (see [START_REF] Prieto | An exploration of factors influencing car purchasing decisions[END_REF] for further factors affecting consumers' purchasing decisions). . H3. There is an interaction effect for status and gender: being a male should reinforce the benefits of status signaling when purchasing a luxury car.

The Studies

The hypotheses were tested in the context of three studies. First, we investigated the reality of stereotype-based behaviors from the perspective of an external observer in a mystery shopping setting; then through a survey of luxury clients, we considered clients' perceptions of their salesperson's interpersonal orientation. Last, we assessed through a lab experiment the existence of stereotype-based behaviors in salespersons. This multimethod approach reinforces the reliability of our findings. Across studies, we refer to the European Commission definition of the luxury car segment, which includes the top ranges of BMW, Mercedes, and Audi automobiles. The definition is based on the price and performance of the car, which makes our research representative of the luxury car sector overall.

Study 1: Mystery Shopping

The first study is a field experiment utilizing mystery shopping observations of salespersons when they dealt with clients, manipulating the sending of status signals. In this study, we attempted to observe the reality of the existence of status and gender stereotyping.

Method

Mystery shopping, used in the first study, involves a person acting as a customer or potential customer to evaluate the delivery of a product or service [START_REF] Tanner | Adaptive selling at trade shows[END_REF]. Over a period of three months, confederates, both a man and a woman in their 40s, separately visited 14 dealers of luxury cars, either single-brand or multi-brand, in the South of France. All dealers' cars ranged from entry-level cars to ultra-luxury cars priced at more than 150,000 euros. Both the man and woman had been judged equally attractive based on their pictures in a pretest. Each dealer was visited twice a month apart. The visits occurred when the dealers opened in the mornings. Once the man and the woman were wearing regular clothes (jeans, jumper, tennis shoes, and caps); once they were dressed in luxury attire (suits, Weston shoes, a Rolex watch for the man; a work dress, Louboutin shoes, and Lancel Adjani bag for the woman). To enhance the credibility of the scenario, the storyline delivered to a dealer was the same, whatever dealer was visited: the man or the woman entered in the store to get information on one of the cars displayed. The car was priced approximately the same across brands, between 50,000 and 60,000 euros, which is the average selling price for a midsize luxury car, according to the Kelley Blue Book. After entering a dealership, the mystery shopper looked attentively at the designated car and waited for a salesperson. The mystery shopper timed the period between the moment he or she entered the dealership and the moment the salesperson started a discussion. We use time since it is a good indicator of salesperson's interpersonal orientation when it is not possible to administer a questionnaire to the salesperson [START_REF] Tanner | Adaptive selling at trade shows[END_REF].

After leaving the dealership, the mystery shopper evaluated the quality of his or her interaction with the salesperson on Humphreys and Williams' (1996) interpersonal orientation scale. The mystery shopper also noted if the salesperson offered to allow the shopper to sit in the car or schedule a test drive.

Results

On average, the quality of the service encounter was very good. All clients received a warm welcome. The mystery shopper waited 266 seconds on average (between 4 and 5 minutes), and the overall evaluation of the interpersonal interaction was good (M=4.08, SD 1.46), with no difference between brands. Univariate analyses of variance on time and interpersonal orientation with gender and status as fixed factors indicate no significant differences based on the gender of the client. Both men and women were served equally and waited on average the same amount of time (See table 1 andtable 2). They were treated the same with regard to an invitation to sit in or test drive a car. The only observed difference was the content of the discussion: it was centered on the performance of the car when the client was a man; and it was centered on the design and the comfort of the car when the client was a woman. This difference indicates nonetheless the existence of a gender-stereotype based on salespeople's beliefs of the different benefits that women and men would expect from a car. status stereotype is activated. The perceived quality of the interaction was lower in the lowstatus (regular attire) condition compared to the high-status (luxury attire) condition (Mluxury= 4.64, SD 1.22 vs. Mregular= 3.53 SD 1.48, F(1,52)= 9.22, p = .004). In the low-status, or regular attire, condition, the mystery shopper waited significantly longer than in the high-status, or luxury attire, condition (Mregular=332 SD 174 vs. Mluxury=202 SD 125, F(1,52)= 10.1, p = .003). These results support hypothesis H1a and H1b. In 72% of the visits, the mystery shopper was not offered to sit in or test drive the car.

Yet, there was a relationship between the status of the client and the proposition to test drive the car. When luxuriously dressed, the mystery shopper was offered to test drive the car in 43% of the visits; when regularly dressed, the mystery shopper was offered to test drive the car in only 14% of the visits (χ 2 (1) = 5.6, p = .018), supporting H1c. These results point to the existence of better quality of service when the client signals status. In addition, even though the results do not reach significance, we noticed that the ratings are more advantageous to male clients demonstrating status than to women. The second study will investigate this phenomenon further.

Study 2: Customer Survey

The first study examined the service quality and preferential treatment of luxury car salespeople when presented with a shopper of high or low status. The findings support the activation of a status stereotype leading to preferential treatment for customers signaling higher statuses. While there was no support for a gender bias resulting in lower-quality treatment of women, the fact that the salespeople emphasized styling and comfort when the shopper was female and performance when the shopper was male does suggest that while the gender bias may not operate entirely as expected, it is present. In the second study, luxury-car clients were surveyed on their perceptions of salespeople right after a selling episode. The survey enabled us to test the hypotheses as to whether a salesperson's interpersonal orientation might be affected by stereotyping.

Method

Participants were recruited as they were exiting luxury car dealers in the South of France and Monaco; 77 clients evaluated the dealer service quality on a SERVQUAL survey, including an interpersonal orientation dimension. Only those clients who had shopped for, but had not purchased, a luxury car were surveyed in order to measure service quality on the same basis

Results

A univariate analysis of variance was conducted on the interpersonal orientation with luxury status (yes or no) and gender as fixed factors. Confirming H1a, there was a significant main effect of a client's luxury status on the interpersonal orientation (see table 3). Clients displaying visible luxury signs rated their salespeople's interpersonal orientations higher (M= 5.52 SD 1.02 versus M= 4.46 SD 1.64, F(1,73)= 16.09, p = .00). There was also an interaction gender X luxury status. Women displaying signs of status were treated equally to men, confirming H3. In contrast, women displaying no signs of status evaluated the interpersonal orientation of their salespeople to be lower than their male counterparts (M= 3.14 SD 1.66 vs. M = 4.86 SD 1.44, F(1, 73)= 5.65 p= 0.02). Again, this result indicates the activation of a gender-stereotype that is overwhelmed by the concomitant status-stereotype activation.

Study 3: Experiment

To consider whether the activation of gender-based or wealth-based sales scripts were influenced by a salesperson's training and/or experience, the final study was a lab experiment that examined stereotyping as the basis for customer segmenting and how it affected the interpersonal orientation of salespeople. Because the training salespeople receive may be based on findings from segmentation research suggesting that there are wealth differences in buyers, a study was conducted involving a sample of salespeople in training; in this case, graduate students preparing for sales careers. These future salespeople, in their first year of sales training, had not been exposed to segmentation strategies that might be based on marketing research.

Method

A total of 207 questionnaires were collected from a sample of masters students in marketing and sales management. Given that they are pursuing a master's in sales, it was interesting to evaluate the existence of the students' initial stereotypes before being trained within companies. The sample was comprised of more women (67%) than men. However, there was no significant difference in the proportion of male and female scenarios across gender (χ 2 (1)= 0.942, p = .530). The average age of a student was 21.55 years old (SD 3.09).

In order to test the hypotheses, a scenario that simulates real-life experiences was developed and pretested with a panel of marketing experts. The scenario method, also called the vignettes method, originates from projective techniques used in psychology. The participants, placed in a hypothetical situation, should respond "as if" they really were in such a situation. The advantage of this approach is to make the experience more realistic and to involve respondents in the creation of meaning [START_REF] Schoenberg | Using vignettes in awareness and attitudinal research[END_REF]. Participants

were exposed to a randomly-assigned picture of a character supposedly entering in a luxury car dealer in order to purchase a luxury car (see the study's appendix). The pictures showed the same man and the same woman across different status conditions in order to avoid introducing a confound effect related to their physical attractiveness. The four sets of attire were extracted from the catalogue of a high-end luxury e-tailer. Stereotype activation was manipulated between subjects along a 2 gender (female, male) X 2 status (luxury, regular) design.

A manipulation check consisting of the following statement at the end of questionnaire read: "The client pictured above is a client of the luxury industry." There was a significant difference for the manipulation check item between the luxury and regular conditions (Mluxury= 5.65, SD 1.02 vs. Mregular= 2.48 SD 1.08, F(1,203)= 437.54, p= .000), but no difference for the gender condition (F(1, 203)= 3.377, p = .07) and no interaction effect between conditions (F(1, 203)= 0.100, p = .752), suggesting that the status manipulation was successful.

After being exposed to the scenario, participants answered a set of questions.

Humphreys and Williams' (1996) five item scale was used to measure the interpersonal orientation (interp1: consideration for the client; interp2: ability to respond quickly to requests; interp3: willingness to satisfy customers; interp4: creativity in meeting clients' needs; interp5: ability to do the job right the first time). All items were anchored from 1 (not likely at all) to 7 (extremely likely). The measure's reliability was good (Cronbach's α= 0.89). Thus, the five items were aggregated into one measure of interpersonal orientation.

Also, respondents had to estimate the price of the car (the budget) that would be purchased by the character in order to test H2, as well as the character's waiting time and likelihood of being offered a test drive.

Results

First, a univariate analysis of variance was conducted with salesperson interpersonal orientation as the dependent variable and status group, gender group, and student gender as fixed factors. There was no main effect of gender and no main effect of gender stereotype (see table 4). However, there was a main effect of status stereotype. In the luxury status group, the character was perceived as more likely to get a higher-level of interpersonal orientation compared to the regular status group (Mluxury= 6.07 vs. Mregular= 4.17, F(1, 185)= 140.624, p = .000), confirming H1a. Also, there was an interaction effect between the conditions of gender stereotype and status stereotype. The effect of status stereotyping on a salesperson's interpersonal orientation was stronger when the male stereotype was activated than when the female stereotype was activated, confirming partially H3 (see graph 1, F(1, 185)= 5.6, p = .019). No other 2-way and 3-way interactions were significant. When status stereotyping was activated, the difference between the treatment of men and women students expected was not significant. However, differences in the expected treatment based on gender became apparent when status symbols were not visible. Second, the effect of stereotypes on a character's waiting time was assessed through a univariate analysis of variance with the status group, gender group, and student gender as fixed factors. There was a significant effect of the status condition, which indicated that in the luxury status condition the character was expected to wait an average of 7 minutes, significantly less than in the regular status condition (18 minutes, F(1, 187)= 28.69, p = .000).

H1b is then supported. No other effects or interaction effects were significant: being a woman did not result in an increase or a decrease in the waiting times students expected.

Third, a multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to gauge the expected likelihood of a character to get preferential treatment (a price offer and a test drive) as dependent variables and status group, gender group, and student gender as fixed factors.

There was no main effect and no interaction effects between the conditions on the likelihood to get a price offer. Yet, there was a main effect of status stereotype on the likelihood to be offered a test drive. The character in the luxury status condition was perceived as more likely to be offered a test drive than in the regular condition (F(1, 195)= 72.31, p = .000) : H1c is then accepted. No other main effects or interactions were significant. In order to test H2, a univariate analysis of variance was conducted with a character's budget as the dependent variable, and status group, gender group, and student gender as fixed factors.

The results showed that the character's budget was perceived to be significantly higher for the male stereotype than for the female stereotype (F(1, 187)= 7.709, p = .006, Mmalestereotype= 44507 euro vs. Mfemalestereotype= 28445 euro). The budget was also perceived to be significantly higher for the luxury status stereotype than for the regular status stereotype (F(1, 187)= 31.204, p=0.000, Mluxury= 52634 vs. Mregular= 20318). There was also an interaction effect between conditions. A character's perceived budget was higher for male luxury clients than for female luxury clients, which confirms the interaction between gender and status (see graph 2, F(1, 187)= 4.994, p = .027). Last, there was an interaction effect between gender stereotype and participants' gender. Male and female participants estimated the same budget for the male character. In contrast, male participants estimated the budget of the female character to be lower than female participants estimated (Mmaleparticipants= 21682 euro vs. Mfemaleparticipants= A series of regression analyses indicate, as expected, that the perceived budget of a character was a significant predictor of the waiting time, the quality of a salesperson's interpersonal orientation, and the likelihood of the character to get a test drive, as expected by the students (See table 5). However, there was no relationship between a character's perceived budget and the likelihood of him or her getting a price offer (see Table 5: Regression

Analyses with Budget as a Predictor). The moderating role of the status stereotype on a character's perceived budget and a salesperson's interpersonal orientation was significant (Wald χ 2 = 3.802, p = 0.050); a character's perceived budget was also significant in terms of the likelihood of the character to get a test drive (Wald χ 2 = 4.877, p = 0.027). The more the character was perceived as having a high budget, the better the interpersonal orientation and the higher the expected likelihood he or she was to receive preferential treatment; these effects were stronger when the status stereotype was activated. Activating a gender stereotype did not moderate the relationship between a character's perceived budget and the dependent variables (interpersonal orientation, waiting time, and preferential treatment).

General Discussion

Summary of Main Results

In 1994, Sharma and Lambert noted that the negative consequences of inaccurate perceptions of potential customers by salespeople can be quite severe; thus, it is surprising that this issue has not received greater research attention. Our results show that the activation of a customer stereotype alters the way salespeople serve customers, possibly interfering with a positive development during the initial phase of the relationship for some, while possibly enhancing the development of a relationship for others. As underscored by [START_REF] Evans | How first impressions of a customer impact effectiveness in an initial sales encounter[END_REF], the first minutes of the first meeting between a seller and a client can be decisive. Our findings suggest that in those first minutes, the salesperson makes a judgment that can influence the entire sales encounter. Some opportunities to advance the sale may be missed and margins lost due to inaccurate perceptions of a prospect's status leading to sub-optimal treatment. In contrast, possibly greater benefits may accrue if salespeople overestimate a prospect's status.

The results of these three studies highlight that luxury retail salespersons are more responsive to a customer who signals status, and that the quality of their interpersonal orientation is higher in this case is also. These customer's also wait less on average and obtain opportunities to test drive cars more frequently. & Brueller, 2018) indicates that the quality of service is equally important to both men and women when choosing a service; further, both experiential and utilitarian characteristics are important. Our research tends to show that assumptions based on gender stereotypes are present when a prospect's status is hidden.

Gender stereotypes led salespeople to emphasize different product characteristics selling to men versus women.

Managerial Implications

As suggested by Study 3, status biases are not likely to be the result of any training or company strategy; rather, status biases are engendered by the activation of a perceived status stereotype. As was observed, even salespeople devoid of experience in the field, recognize visible signs of status and attribute higher budgets and more profitable opportunities to prospects who exhibit these signs. Thus, recruiting salespeople with a low tendency to stereotype might be a first step in the elimination of prejudices, if desired. Their interactions with customers may be perceived as more authentic. In contrast, salespeople who have a high tendency to stereotype might experience cognitive dissonance when trying to fight this tendency, which may lead to lower-quality service [START_REF] Andrzejewski | Service with a smile: Does the type of smile matter[END_REF]. Our results indicate that men might be more likely to exhibit discriminating behaviors toward women. Thus, recruiting women in a sector that is male-dominated might be a good way to break these patterns.

But hiring more women may not be enough. Many brands like Mercedes 1 train the employees to avoid the so-called "Rolex effect," or judging prospects by status signals such as their wristwatch brands. Training helps salespeople understand their biases and act appropriately in spite of them. One option is the use of a consumer persona. In marketing, consumer personas are fictional representations of consumers. In a way, personas are stereotypes with exaggerated traits but based on actual market segmentation data, which help define the selling proposition (c.f. [START_REF] Tanner | Analytics and Dynamic Customer Strategy: Big Profits from Big Data[END_REF]. In sales, it would be interesting to train salespeople with personas that might present exaggerated traits regarding a product category.

Role plays involving different types of consumers might reveal salespeople's biases and lead to a more considered use of stereotypes.

More than any other sector, the luxury sector is the place where customer should be given an extraordinary experience. In this setting, the salesperson is the principal actor and should not miss the introduction of the play [START_REF] Bergeron | A comparison of the effects of the first impression and the last impression in a selling context[END_REF]. Every contact with a person entering the scene is an opportunity to create a relationship, and salespeople should be aware of their crucial roles. As such, they should also be conscious that their work is an 1 First author personal communication emotional work (e.g. [START_REF] Tang | Emotional labor: The role of employee acting strategies on customer emotional experience and subsequent buying decisions[END_REF]; therefore, luxury brands should offer their salespeople training on emotional exchanges and emotional intelligence (e.g., [START_REF] Singh | Emotion regulation -natural reward strategy linkage and its impact on sales performance: The mediating impact of salesmanship skills[END_REF] Another possible implication of this research is related to the sales setting. Sales managers may want to consider posting reminders of the importance of providing service excellence to all clients in order to create the appropriate attitudes and responses among salespeople. For example, Luxury Attitude, a consulting firm specializing in the luxury sector, created "Les Maximes de Sophie" (https://www.luxury-attitude.com/maximes-de-sophie/).

Through reinterpretations of maxims known to all, the endearing Sophie reveals the essential ingredients to ensure clients experience high-quality service. Such reminders are expected to help salespeople overcome their bias.

Future Research and Limitations

Future research should investigate the consequences of the activation of other forms of stereotypes on salespersons' behaviors in a variety of industries and in the context of services.

For instance, age might be related to the activation of a status stereotype (older people might be perceived as wealthier), which could also lead to preferential treatment and unjustified salespeople behaviors. Further, in the context of this research, we investigate only the negative effects of segmenting the clientele, which might lead to stereotyping. Yet, there are benefits related to segmenting a market based on a prospect's status, gender, or age.

Segmentation leads to the more frequent use of efficient selling patterns, such as which features to emphasize early in the conversation, which can lead to higher sales. For example, perhaps men do appreciate a car's performance dimensions more than do women; perhaps for women, styling may be more important. While this particular form of adaptation to gender was easy to observe in the mystery shopping study, other, more subtle, forms of segmentation may occur that yield efficiency. Considering adaptation based on segmentation characteristics and its effects on the efficiency and performance of salespeople is an important track for future research.

In addition, future research should investigate in depth the other biases related to customer stereotyping in order to improve the training salespeople receive. Looking at covariates such as the company's policy in terms of its service quality and the role managers paly in the development of a customer orientation could enrich the present work. Indeed, customer orientation cannot depend exclusively on the salesperson. The market orientation of the company influences the attitude of salespeople and their customer orientation [START_REF] Siguaw | The influence of the market orientation of the firm on sales force behavior and attitudes[END_REF]. Thus, a firm that is dedicated to excellence in terms of service must pay special attention to employees and the cues by which they judge customers. [START_REF] Hartline | Corridors of influence in the dissemination of customer-oriented strategy to customer contact service employee[END_REF] believe that the organizational involvement and the socialization of employees are ways of instilling a customer-oriented culture conducive to better quality of service, yet this study illustrates that stereotyping can potentially adversely affect service quality.

This study focused on the signaling of status through clothing and other visible symbols. Future research should consider intentional status manipulation, such as a prospect displaying counterfeit goods like a fake Rolex (e.g., [START_REF] Davidson | Shame on you: When materialism leads to purchase intentions toward counterfeit products[END_REF], and the possible effects of a salesperson's perceptions of such a false status. Similarly, behaviors as status cues (e.g., [START_REF] Smithson | When less is more in the recognition heuristic[END_REF], such as a prospect displaying product knowledge or mentioning memberships in exclusive organizations, should also be considered.

The study of employee-customer identification is a very interesting track of research because as suggested by Korschun et al. (2014, p.27), "frontline employees use what they know about customers as a means to define themselves at work." On the one hand, in the luxury sector, customers may find themselves being stereotyped as haughty. On the other hand, salespeople who identify with these customers may emulate their behavior by acting haughtily towards other customers, like the salespeople in Pretty Woman [START_REF] Ward | Should the devil sell Prada? Retail rejection increases aspiring consumers' desire for the brand[END_REF]. It might be interesting to study how the stereotypes held by salespeople and the stereotypes held by customers might interact with each other, creating a "stigma magnification effect" (Mikolo et al., 2016).

Conclusion

Past research has investigated the influence of customer traits (age, gender, appearance, etc.) on service delivery (Ainscough et al., 2014;[START_REF] Johnson | Appearance and dress as a source of information: A qualitative approach to data collection[END_REF][START_REF] Nelissen | Social benefits of luxury brands as costly signals of wealth and status[END_REF].

This paper contributes to this line of research by emphasizing that signaling status in a luxury purchase context supersedes all other traits, including gender, an individual trait used as segmentation variable in the car sector [START_REF] Darley | Exploring the relationship of perceived automotive salesperson attributes, customer satisfaction and intentions to automotive service department patronage: The moderating role of customer gender[END_REF][START_REF] Ayres | Race and gender discrimination in bargaining for a new car[END_REF]. The findings highlight the mechanism at play, a mediating process leading salespeople to perceiving the budgets of customers displaying signs of status to be higher than those who do not display these signs. Depending on salespersons' perceptions, customers might benefit of preferential treatment, leading to satisfaction or, on the contrary, might experience a bad service delivery, leading to the loss of a client. The gold standard in the luxury industry is to avoid focusing on a selling episode but instead to focus on a customer's lifetime value (CLV), which is based on creating solid relationship with the clients over time. Every client should have the impression of being a very important client. "Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen."; this is Ritz-Carlton motto, which "exemplifies the anticipatory service provided by all staff members." (http://www.ritzautomobilelton.com/en/about/goldstandards), a perfect service no matter the client's gender, age, ethnicity or wealth.

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: How Status Stereotype Activation May Affects a Salesperson's Behavior

  across participants. Also, participants were filtered to include only people who own a luxury car as defined by the European Commission (F-Segment), from BMW Series 7 or Audi A8 up to luxury-only brands, such as Ferraris or Bentleys. Due to the target industry (luxury cars), only 15% of the clients in the sample were women. As a comparison, women are underrepresented among Porsche clients, and they represent one-fourth of the drivers of Porsche's best-selling model to women in 2016, according to Domink Gruber, Porsche France Public Relation manager, Le Figaro (2016). The average age of a client was 39.7 years (25 th percentile 23.5 years; Median 41 years; 75 th percentile 49.5 years) with a 19-years-old minimum and a 73-years-old maximum. After the interaction with the researcher, clients were coded as corresponding to the luxury status or the regular status stereotype, based on displays of status signals (luxury watches, shoes, clothes, bags, etc.) or not. Sixty percent were subjectively considered as corresponding to a luxury status stereotype.

Figure 2 :

 2 Figure 2: The Effect of Stereotypes on a Salesperson Interpersonal Orientation

Figure 3 :

 3 Figure 3: The Effect of Status Stereotypes on a Character's Preferential Treatment

  187)= 4.883, p = .0028). This result might point to stronger discriminatory behaviors regarding women among men than among women.

Figure 4 :

 4 Figure 4: Characters' Perceived Budgets in Euros

Table 1 :

 1 ANOVA on the Perceived Quality of the Interpersonal Orientation

	R 2 =.170	Df	Sum of	F value	p value
			Squares
	Status	1	17.16	9.22	.004
	Gender	1	2.16	1.16	.286
	Status*Gender 1	.45	.24	.626
	Model	3	19.77	3.54	.021
	Error	52	96.79

Table 3 :

 3 ANOVA on the Perceived Quality of a Salesperson's Interpersonal

	Orientation
	R 2 =.249	Df	Sum of	F value	p value
			Squares
	Status	1	24.31	16.09	.000
	Gender	1	6.01	3.98	.060
	Status*Gender 1	8.53	5.65	.020
	Model	3	36.60	8.07	.000
	Error	73	110.297

Table 4 :

 4 ANOVA on the Perceived Quality of a Salesperson's Interpersonal

	Orientation
	R 2 =.563	Df	Sum of	F value	p value
			Squares
	Status_stereotype	1	106.12	140.62	.000
	Gender_stereotype	1	1,84	2,44	,120
	Participant_Gender	1	1.03	1.36	.244
	Status*Gender	1	4.23	5.60	.019
	Status*Participant	1	.001	.001	.979
	Gender*Participant	1	.14	.18	.670
	Status*Gender*Participant 1	.55	.72	.396
	Model	7	180.00	34.08	.000
	Error	185	139.60

Table 5 :

 5 Regression Analyses with a Character's Perceived Budget as a Predictor

		β	t-value	p-value
	Budget -> Interpersonal	.386	5.636	.000
	relationships
	Budget -> Test drive	.219	3.115	.002
	likelihood
	Budget -> Waiting time	-.257	-3.642	.000

  These findings are in line with[START_REF] Paulins | An analysis of customer service quality to college students as influenced by customer appearance through dress during the in-store shopping process[END_REF] research, which reported that customers' dress styles affect service quality (measured through Servqual) in the retail sector. The results indicate that status signals also indicate to salespeople that a prospect has a higher budget and that the likelihood of a sale is greater.Gender-based stereotype behaviors in relation to waiting time and opportunities to test drive a car were observed only in the absence of status stereotypes being activated. Men and women were equally likely to obtain quality service, including test drives, when they signaled status. If they did not, they had to wait longer and were less likely to receive a opportunity to test drive a car. Yet subtle forms of gender bias appeared in the content, suggesting that gender may lead to assumptions that could influence sales outcomes, positively when assumptions are proven accurate, and negatively when they are not, regardless of a prospect's status signals. Recent research (Friedman

Please use your imagination to describe the purchasing process for a car. The picture below will help you describe the purchase episode. Have a close look at the customer on the picture. He/she will be entering at a car dealer. Describe what will happen when he/she will be in the store. In your opinion, what brand of cars will purchase the client?

This client enters a luxury car dealership. Please describe with as much details as possible the selling episode. In your opinion, what is the client's budget (in euros)? In your opinion, how long will this client be waiting before the salesperson takes care for him (in minutes)? To what extent do you agree with the statements below (interpersonal orientation scale, satisfaction scale, preferential treatment)


Ph.D Sandrine Hollet-Haudebert

Ph.D Christophe Fournier
email: christophe.fournier@univ-montp2.fr

Juiliet Poujol
email: jpoujol@groupeinseec.com

Ph.D Ellen Pullins
email: ellen.pullins@utoledo.edu

Ph.D Juliet Poujol

Designing Sales Contests in Call Centers: Understanding Inside Salespeople's Preferences for Contest Design Attributes and Rewards

. With the move to inside sales growing, and with research on sales contests limited, little information exists as to what type of sales contests may be appropriate in these settings. It, therefore, may be prudent to survey the interests of the sales force to determine preferences of call center employees regarding the design and relevance of sales contests and associated rewards. Data from a quantitative survey of 202 inside salespeople was analyzed using conjoint analysis to understand inside salesperson preference for contest design and rewards. Conclusions indicate that salespeople prefer non-specific (more global) objectives, few winners, and team competitions.

iNtrODUctiON

TA number of factors including transportation costs, travel difficulties, IT and telecommunication improvements, higher costs for field sales people, and businesses' drive for cost efficiencies are resulting in high growth for telephone call centers. The industry ended 2011 at around $7 billion, with a work force exceeding 400,000 [START_REF] Hermosa | Slower growth seen for call centers in 2011[END_REF]. According to Business World, the call center industry is expected to grow by 15-20% this year, an actual slowdown in growth rates as compared to previous years. Inside sales businesses generate 75% of the sales revenues in the call center industry (Gessner and Scott 2001). Many predictions have the relative number of field salespeople falling as inside salespeople take over some field accounts and handle more responsibility. Yet, despite the growing importance of inside selling, little academic work is focusing on this context.

Creating a compensation plan that motivates employees and increases sales and profitability is complicated, and often difficult to implement. Motivating inside salespeople may be unique, as it is a high-stress job with multiple objectives. It is also characterized by a high level of competition, close supervision, a sometimes oppressive work environment, and uncertain career prospects. A call center manager from a pre-study study (described later) commented, "You have to keep folks motivated so that the last call is as fresh as the first", and added, "Programs to recognize the top folks are appealing, but it's also about making sure all 1,100 people get touched on [a] daily basis."

Given that call center conditions differ from those of field selling, it may not be appropriate to generalize findings about sales contests and rewards for field salespeople to inside selling. Call center policy is focused on using incentives and other means to motivate employees and influence employee commitment [START_REF] Batt | Managing Customer Services: Human Resources Practices, Quit Rates and Sales Growth[END_REF], while improving performance and reducing turnover. In practice, using incentives to motivate is relatively common in call centers, yet there have been no academic studies on salespeople's preferences in regard to incentives. As a result, little is known about the best practice for structuring call center incentives. In 1986, referring to the growth of inside selling and drawing on field salespeople, [START_REF] Moncrief | Developing Telemarketing Support Systems[END_REF] concluded that "telemarketers may need some form of incentive other than straight salary to compensate the boredom associated with the job". The nature of the position has evolved over the past 25 years, and sales contests may encourage salespeople for a short period of time, through rewards given in return for achieving an objective.

These contests may consist of a variety of objectives and could be designed to incentivize individuals, pairs, or teams [START_REF] Murphy | Sales Contest: A Research Agenda[END_REF]. Murphy and colleagues (2004) point out that there is a need for further research taking other contexts into account. They explicitly call for new sales environments to be considered, particularly telephone selling in different sectors (B-to-B and B-to-C). This research will endeavor to explore sales contests in greater detail, using a sample of inside salespeople. We undertake two objectives: 1) to understand inside salespeople's preferences regarding sales contest design, and 2) to understand the preference for type of compensation offered in the context of sales contests.

literAtUre reVieW call center literature

Aksin and colleagues (2007) note that only recently have human resource and behavioral issues become a central question of study regarding call centers. They note that call center employees may feel a tension between high control and high commitment based on the performance measurement systems utilized, including qualitative and quantitative measures. Often, this can lead to high stress and issues with burnout, turnover, and absenteeism.

The way call centers are organized has been the subject of numerous studies. One of the most recent [START_REF] Moss | Under Construction: The Continuing Evolution of Job Structures in Call Centers[END_REF]) concerned the evolution of organizational changes in call centers since the 1980s. This study showed that approaches based solely on salary increases met with little success among call center employees, and that career opportunities were appreciated more. Career advances are a form of formal recognition by the organization, as well as bringing enhanced status and responsibilities. Other studies have shown a significant link between motivational practices and an increase in sales [START_REF] Batt | Managing Customer Services: Human Resources Practices, Quit Rates and Sales Growth[END_REF]. For example, the compensation system has an important impact on inside salespeople's behavior and performance. Given the potential of this area, we turn to consideration of compensation, specifically sales contests, in the call center.

Motivation

Questions of motivation, performance and objectives in call centers have been addressed in the literature with the emphasis on different factors such as stress and optimism [START_REF] Tuten | Performance, Satisfaction and Turnover in Call Centers, the Effects of Stress and Optimism[END_REF], the links between productivity and quality of service [START_REF] Comtois | La difficulté de concilier productivité et qualité du service: une étude dans les centres d'appels[END_REF], and management and the sharing of authority [START_REF] Adria | Centralization as a Design Consideration for the Management of Call Centers[END_REF]. The issue of motivation in call centers is even more crucial given the monotony of the work and the poor career prospects, and there are no empirical studies of inside salespeople's preferences regarding sales contests. Researchers and practitioners are divided as to what constitutes the ideal characteristics of contests [START_REF] Poujol | Caractéristique d'un challenge de vente et adhésion des commerciaux : quelques recommandations[END_REF], and knowledge of how they are perceived remains very limited. [START_REF] Murphy | Sales Contest: A Research Agenda[END_REF] consider that attitude toward contests is at the core of a motivational model of the salesperson. This leads us to focus on inside salespeople's preferences in relation to contests so that more effective incentive operations may be developed.

To aid in understanding sales contest preferences, we use the Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) of Motivation [START_REF] Deci | Effects of contingent and noncontingent rewards and controls on intrinsic motivation[END_REF][START_REF] Deci | The Psychology of Self-Determination[END_REF]. According to this theory, rewards can be perceived either as a mechanism meant to control behavior or a mechanism meant to provide feedback. Likewise, the context or situation can promote choice and responsiveness to initiations as opposed to being perceived as controlling and limiting behaviors [START_REF] Pullins | An Exploratory Investigation of the Relationship of Sales Force Compensation and Intrinsic Motivation[END_REF]. [START_REF] Mallin | The Moderating Effect of Control Systems on the Relationship Between Commission and Salesperson Intrinsic Motivation in a Customer Oriented Environment[END_REF] demonstrated the applicability of this theory, the ability of contextual variables and informational value of rewards, to impact the field salesperson's motivation. They found that the sales control system could influence whether commission compensation was perceived as controlling or providing feedback, thus impacting the effect on motivation. [START_REF] Pullins | An Exploratory Investigation of the Relationship of Sales Force Compensation and Intrinsic Motivation[END_REF] predicted that, overall, sales contests and competitions, as competitively contingent rewards, would have a negative impact on intrinsic motivation. However, a favorable attitude or preference towards the contest type, and toward the reward, could also affect their impact on motivation. In addition, contests which are perceived as less controlling of behavior could mitigate this negative impact, much like feedback can mitigate the negative impact of commission on intrinsic motivation [START_REF] Mallin | The Moderating Effect of Control Systems on the Relationship Between Commission and Salesperson Intrinsic Motivation in a Customer Oriented Environment[END_REF].

sales contest Design

There are a large number of characteristics that can be combined when a sales contest is organized [START_REF] Murphy | Sales Contest: A Research Agenda[END_REF][START_REF] Poujol | Caractéristique d'un challenge de vente et adhésion des commerciaux : quelques recommandations[END_REF]. [START_REF] Murphy | Sales Contest: A Research Agenda[END_REF] review the most important characteristics of sales contests: its objective, the number of winners, the competitive format, and its frequency.

Pre-stUDY: QUAlitAtiVe iNsiGHts ON cONtest DesiGN

Because sales contests had not been studied in a call center environment, a clear understanding of the vital contest variables was needed. Therefore, a pre-study was conducted to better recognize incentive design and types of rewards.

The pre-study included two days of observation and interviews in two separate call centers. Ten structured interviews were conducted at the managerial level (i.e., head of the call centers, human resource managers, etc.). This pre-study was used to inform hypothesis development for the conjoint analysis that follows.

One of the two call centers implemented a contest with a non-specific, global performance objective, which led us to an additional research question. Given Cognitive Evaluation Theory's suggestion that it is the controlling aspect of rewards that lead to negative impacts on motivation, we were very interested when we observed this practice and wanted to explore it further.

tHe

DeVelOPMeNt OF reseArcH QUestiONs

The theory, literature and findings from a pre-study were used to develop research questions on the various design characteristics and rewards of interest.

Design characteristic 1: Objectives of the contest

Sales contest's objectives are typically outcome-based, and the objective of the sales contest is one of the most discussed topics in the literature as authors are divided on whether the contest's objective is quantitative or qualitative. [START_REF] Anderson | Perspectives on Behavior-Based Versus Outcome-Based Salesforce Control Systems[END_REF] have listed various advantages and disadvantages of this mode of control. Outcome-based goals would leave more autonomy to the salesperson and should increase specific outcomes of performance, according to CET. However, it could also create role conflicts or role ambiguity and possibly detract from intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, the literature on sales contests does not present the case of non-specific, global objectives, which has not been previously examined yet exists and is used in some call centers. The principle of this type of sales contests is to give the results and the reward at the end of the contest period according to the performance of the salespeople without specifically defining the "performance" requirement (perhaps a bonus at the end of the year for the "top performers"). It might be based on, for example, subjective evaluations of the managers and/or on actual outcome variables. The main advantage of this kind of compensation is to encourage the salespeople to focus on their overall performance and not to focus on only one aspect of performance for the contest. Following is a quote from the pre-study:

We use a lot of contests with mysterious objectives. In that case, the inside salespeople don't know what the objective …is. For example, they know there will be a winner and a reward at the end of the day [for performance], but they don't know on which criteria.

The concept of a non-specific objective during a sales contest came up three times in the quantitative pre-study discussion. It appeared that this was a relatively common way to implement a sales contest without telling the salespeople on which specific objective they will be rewarded, according to our interviews and observations.

To help better clarify this type of reward, the following examples are given. In a call center in France, where reps were doing outbound sales calls for a low margin, low price product, in calls of about two minutes, salespeople experienced very high levels of rejection. Management was concerned with call duration, number of presentations made, and number of sales closed. Management wanted to boost perrformance on all critieria so they implemented a half day competition for best performance. During the two and a half hours, the exact goal /metric was unknown. After that time, management revealed which of the three criteria was being used to evaluation who would win (a set of movie tickets).

In another example, in the financial services industry, inside sales reps were targeting consumers, selling all the basic financial services (credit cards; mortgage loans, savings). A contest was implemented, and to avoid a strict effort concentration of the salesperson on one particular product, the product used for the contest was not identified, so all the produts were pushed equally by the sales force. This can provide some interest when considering a long term perspective and /or a relationship focus. It may be that contests that don't clearly specify the objective, or specify a very global objective (performance) are seen as less controlling and therefore may actually mitigate the negative impact that can be construed from designs that are seen as controlling [START_REF] Deci | The Psychology of Self-Determination[END_REF]). However, it could also limit motivation because inside salespeople do not know how to behave or how to prioritize their specific actions. Since there is a lack of a clear direction in the literature, we investigate the following research question:

RQ 1: Do inside salespeople prefer knowing specifically what their objective is during a sales contest or not?

Design characteristic 2: Number of Winners

The number of winners is another important subject to debate in the literature. Based on Goal setting theory [START_REF] Locke | Toward a Theory of Task Motivation and Incentives[END_REF]), [START_REF] Hile-Hart | An Empirical Investigation of Salespeople's Performance, Effort and Selling Method during a Sales Contest[END_REF] showed the superiority of a small number of winners. However, [START_REF] Moncrief | Sales Contests: A New Look at an Old Management Tool[END_REF] found that salespeople are divided regarding the potential number of winners in a contest. Preference would depend on the weight of valence and expectancies in the motivational process opposing a small number of winners, as prescribed by the Goal setting theory, and a medium number of winners increasing the chance of winning, as prescribed by the Expectancy theory [START_REF] Vroom | Work and Motivation[END_REF]. A larger number of winners might also feel less controlling and more motivating according to CET. According to [START_REF] Murphy | Sales Contest: A Research Agenda[END_REF] a contest should always provide each salesperson with a chance to win; otherwise the contest is not motivating. Given a lack of clear insight on direction, we pose the following research question: RQ 2: Do inside salespeople prefer sales contests with a low or a medium number of winners?

Design characteristic 3: competition Format

A sales contest can have an individual or a team format. According to Moncrief and colleagues (1988), salespeople prefer the individual format since rewards depend only on a salesperson's performance. The individual format is also easier to administer. However, some researchers (e.g., [START_REF] Murphy | Sales Contests Effectiveness: An Examination of Sales Contest Design Preference of Field Sales[END_REF]), as well as numerous managers, recommend the team format. The development of teamwork and the focus on customer loyalty in many firms seems to influence salespeople's perceptions of individual sales contests. Preference of team versus individual format should depend on whether having teammates is seen as controlling of individual behavior, which can be detrimental to intrinsic motivation and thus less preferred. It could, however, be argued that it allows for more individual freedom in a role as a member of the group and not solely responsible, and thus not controlling and more intrinsically motivating. Lacking specific empirical insight on this question, we ask: RQ 3: Do inside salespeople prefer sales contests organized on an individual or a team basis?

Design characteristic 4: Frequency of contests

The academic literature mentions contest duration, but for the most part neglects the frequency of sales contests. Managers recommend a parsimonious use of sales contests without evaluating the impact of sales contest frequency on salespeople. It seems that the repetition of contests would erode their attractiveness and have a negative impact on salespeople's motivation. Another important drawback of a high contest frequency is the proliferation of the objectives; salespeople could become confused regarding priority objectives. For a contest to be motivating, it must garner attention and be perceived as requiring a different set of behaviors.

With regard to contest frequency, the only study we are aware of indicates mixed findings; half of the people questioned said they liked having more contests, while half wanted them to be used more sparingly [START_REF] Beltramini | Salesperson Motivation to Perform and Job Satisfaction: A Sales Contest Participant Perspective[END_REF]. The authors conclude that companies should not use contests too often in order to retain their uniqueness, and that they should not be seen as part of regular compensation. Once again, lacking clear answers and testing in the call center context, we pose the following research question: RQ 4: Do inside salespeople prefer sales contests with a low or a high frequency?

sales contest rewards

Ever since the seminal studies on sales performance [START_REF] Walker | Motivation and Performance in Industrial Selling: Present Knowledge and Needed Research[END_REF], rewards have been viewed as a major motivation lever. The various forms of rewards constitute potential sources of satisfaction and motivation. Indeed, Anderson and Chambers (1985, p. 8) noted, "People's behaviors in organizations are largely determined by the way in which their activities are measured and rewarded". The type of reward determines the motivation of the salespeople and, hence, it is important to know the types of rewards salespeople prefer. In their 1992 study, Chonko and colleagues make comparisons between different types of rewards. Their central findings show that salespeople prefer salary increases to all other forms of rewards. These authors also note the relatively minor importance of recognition for salespeople. The commonly held belief that recognition addresses psychological needs, and is therefore highly valued by salespeople, in fact does not seem to correspond to the preferences of salespeople themselves. The explanation put forward by the authors is that if recognition is unattainable or if it is commonly bestowed, then it does not enable individuals to be differentiated in terms of performance.

A second study [START_REF] Lopez | Reward Preferences of Salespeople: How do Commissions Rate?[END_REF] shows that increases in salary and in commission rates are salespeople's favored forms of rewards. The authors also show that 77% of their respondents prefer an increase in commission rates to an increase in salary. It is important to note that, for both studies, there is no significant link between demographic characteristics (i.e. age, experience, education) and salespeople's preferences. Both studies are of field salespeople, so the generalizability to inside sales is unclear.

Regarding contest prizes, [START_REF] Caballero | A Comparative Study of Incentives in a Sales Force Contest[END_REF] showed that salespeople preferred winning non-monetary rewards such as trips, rather than monetary rewards, like bonuses or gifts, of the same value. Trips are considered more of an intrinsic reward, which would be more highly linked to relationship and creative performance, according to CET. The possibility of joining the group is an integral part of a trip and is the measure of its success (Hasting et al. 1988). What motivates salespeople in making this choice is the opportunity of meeting the firm's directors and senior management together with the chance of increasing the number of contacts and of obtaining valuable information. These arguments are, however, much debated. [START_REF] Beltramini | Salesperson Motivation to Perform and Job Satisfaction: A Sales Contest Participant Perspective[END_REF] demonstrated the preference of recognition over bonuses or trips, in terms of attitude and satisfaction. Their investigation showed that monetary rewards are more strongly correlated with performance in sales contests than recognition.

Measures

The four aspects of contests are fully independent of one another -an essential condition for the conjoint analysis method. In an additional step of the qualitative investigation, five individual interviews were conducted with call center agents extracted from different call centers. Two interviews took place in a call center where the empirical study was to be implemented to be sure that the questionnaire was easy to understand, and to discuss the relevance of the variables being considered, including an unknown objective. This exploratory study enabled us to focus on the particular variables used in the literature or uncovered in the first two stages, namely objective of the contest (revealed or non-specific), number of winners (low or medium), competition format (individual or team), and contest frequency (low or high).

We drew our inspiration from contests that had already taken place at various call centers. The objective may or may not be given in advance; the number of winners may be very limited or larger (for example, the best salesperson or the ten best); the contest format may be either individual or collective (with an adaptation of the number of winners to each format); and the frequency may be high or low (several contests at the same time or not). Frequency was operationalized this way because when sales contests are very frequent, several contests may be running simultaneously. The combination of these four characteristics, each with two modalities, leads to 16 scenarios. In order to make the experiment more realistic, we presented 8 contest scenarios and asked respondents to rank them. This is typically practiced by randomizing the variables such that a utility can still be extracted from each.

With regard to the type of rewards, we adopted the original tool developed by [START_REF] Chonko | Selling and Sales Management in Action: Reward Preferences of Salespeople[END_REF], and later deployed by [START_REF] Lopez | Reward Preferences of Salespeople: How do Commissions Rate?[END_REF]. However, in view of the very specific context of call centers and their management systems, we eliminated questions which offered choices involving increased commission rates. Following an in-depth study of sales contests and competitions in general, and in the specific context of these platforms, we retained three types of rewards: 1) gift chosen by the organizer, 2) gift chosen by the inside salesperson from a catalog, and 3) gift certificate.

sample

The study was carried out at two of the call centers where the qualitative study was completed. The call centers both receive inbound calls and make outbound calls, and the salespeople have specific consultative selling responsibility and assigned accounts. These firms sell pharmaceutical products to pharmacies and financial products to private individuals, thus including both B2B and B2C contexts. The compensation structures of the firms are composed of a paid salary, a commission, bonuses and sales contests. Using a factorial fractioned plan, a total of eight stimuli were evaluated by a sample of 214 inside salespeople directly at their work station, and 202 questionnaires turned out to be usable for the analysis. The sample was representative and made up of 41% men and 59% women, with an average length of time in the job of nineteen months. 52.6% were engaged only in making calls, 25% only in receiving calls and 22.4% both. This appears to accurately represent the profile of employees at these firms.

Analysis

The conjoint analysis is a form of analysis of variance that measures an individual's preference of attributes of an object. The principle rests on the decomposition of preferences in partial utilities. [START_REF] Green | Conjoint Analysis in Marketing: New Developments with Implications for Research and Practice[END_REF]. This method has been used extensively in the context of consumer goods, but has also been used in many sales force management applications; most of them concerned with quota policy [START_REF] Winer | The Effect of Product Sales Quotas on Sales Force Productivity[END_REF][START_REF] Darmon | Setting Sales Quotas with Conjoint Analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Mantrala | Structuring a Multiproduct Sales Quota-Bonus Plan for a Heterogeneous Sales Force: A Practical Model-Based Approach[END_REF] or compensation packages [START_REF] Churchill | Determining the Rewards Salespeople Value: A Comparison of Methods[END_REF]. The objective here is to identify salespeople's preferences regarding design characteristics of a contest. [START_REF] Murphy | Sales Contests Effectiveness: An Examination of Sales Contest Design Preference of Field Sales[END_REF], in studies on sales contests, carried out two experiments on salespeople, followed by conjoint measurement analysis of their preferences in regard to this type of motivation operation. Conjoint analysis is thus a method that is particularly suited to our research.

Analysis was conducted with SPSS software with syntax macro control. Kendall's coefficient of concordance used to test the homogeneity of respondents' preference in regard to contests has a value of .92 (nearly 1). Hence the overall results are acceptable.

results

First, results reveal the impact of each attribute and mean utilities, which in turn indicate the difference each attribute could make in the total utility. The results highlight the significance of format (importance of 33%) in the choice of individual versus team contest (RQ3), ahead of objective (RQ1) (27.76%), number of winners (RQ2) (21.26%), and frequency (RQ4) (17.98%). The modalities having the highest mean utilities are respectively: nonspecific objective (0.49), team format (0.42), low number of winners (0.20), and then high frequency (0.01).

In Table 1, the results present salespeople's preferences for rewards in general categories, as well as their preferences for each type of reward. In Table 1, results for RQ5 show 66% of the inside salespeople in our sample state that they prefer a "salary increase" to "career opportunities". On the other hand, the declared intensity of those who prefer a salary increase (5.65) is higher than those who want career opportunities (5.11), which is a significant difference. It is therefore a question of finding an indicator that reveals the intensity of the preferred modality and compares it with the other. Accordingly, a difference of means test was carried out. In general, columns 1 and 2 show that the inside salespeople systematically prefer salary increases to all other proposals (i.e. career opportunities, recognition or monetary rewards). Career opportunities are in turn preferred (apart from a salary increase) to the other rewards, namely recognition or monetary rewards. Finally, monetary rewards are preferred to recognition policies. Hence, the inside salespeople's preferences are first and foremost for salary increases and then for career opportunities. Results also demonstrate the intensity of these preferences. These preferences are particularly notable with regard to the combinations of "salary increase vs. recognition", "career opportunity vs. recognition", and "recognition vs. monetary rewards". The difference in intensity is lower (although significant at the 5% threshold) for the combination "salary increase vs. monetary rewards". Finally, there is no difference in intensity for the combinations "salary increase vs. monetary rewards" and "career opportunities vs. monetary rewards".

With regard to the characteristics of sales contests proposed for RQ6, a gift certificate is preferred to a gift chosen by the organizer (see Table 2). Moreover, the quantification of this preference shows that respondents who say that they prefer a gift certificate are very clear in their choice (6.21). On the other hand, this intensity of preference is lower (4.28) for those who prefer the second alternative. In addition, inside salespeople's preferences are stronger for gift certificates than for a gift chosen from a catalog. In considering the intensity of preferences for each of these modalities, the gap is significant, but lower (6.00 vs. 5.34). Finally, more inside salespeople prefer a contest where winning allows them to choose a gift from a catalog to one where the gift is chosen by the organizer. This preference, moreover, is particularly clear and marked (5.82 vs. 4.76).

In order to establish if certain demographic profiles could better explain particular choices as indicated in RQ7, logistic regressions were completed. Gender, age, job tenure, level of education, and the nature of the activity (inbound call or outbound call) were examined. First, it should be noted that only the results involving two combinations are shown here, for reasons of significance. Furthermore, for the two significant equations only 5% of the variance is explained, indicating the very low explanatory power of the variables considered. Table 3 shows that respondents with two or three years of higher education (education 2) prefer salary increases to career opportunities. All other relationships are non-significant. Moreover, the older the respondents are the more they favor job recognition rather than a salary increase. As for the other kinds of rewards preferred by inside salespeople (gift certificates, etc.), none of the individual variables considered is able to explain their choices.

27 The results of this study seem to represent a unique pattern of findings for the inside salesperson, providing evidence that other sales theory and findings may not immediately generalize to this context. In addition, we identify a new variable that has not been previously studied in the literature, that of a non-specific objective. These findings lend credence to the application of Deci's Cognitive Evaluation Theory of Motivation for this type of inside sales.

MANAGeriAl iMPlicAtiONs

This analysis of conjoint measurements provides some insights and potential guidance on the ideal contest for the inside salesperson. It appears a contest with a non-specific, global objective, organized in teams, with few winners, and part of a high frequency program, would be most preferred. These results can help the sales manager develop more efficient sales contests and reward programs. For example, the idea of not setting a specified objective for the contest is an important managerial implication that supports the managerial literature. Following, we consider each of the contest design characteristics.

Contrary to what was expected, the non-specific objective may reduce the pressure associated with productivity demands and "feel" less controlling and, therefore, more motivating for inside salespeople. The assessment and monitoring of performance by managers during the contest may also be less onerous, enabling the inside salespeople to have a certain sense of autonomy in carrying out tasks. As [START_REF] Deci | The Psychology of Self-Determination[END_REF] suggested, it's plausible to consider that this type of competition may be seen as less controlling of specific behaviors and thus more intrinsically motivating. This constitutes a major contribution from this study, since to our knowledge of this characteristic has never been addressed in the academic literature and has only occasionally been mentioned in the managerial literature. In addition, the preliminary finding here is somewhat counterintuitive since the assumption might logically be that more information, with less ambiguity, is better.

In agreement with the position taken by Hile-Hart and colleagues (1989), these results reveal a preference for contests with a small number of winners. Salespeople have a need for recognition, and all the more so if they are at the beginning of their career [START_REF] Murphy | Salespersons' Perceptions About Sales Contests[END_REF], when recognition can mean job security 1997). Team contests are a way of contributing to greater cohesion and motivation in sales teams while maintaining customer relationships. Team competitions may also help to offset other negative aspects of working in call centers, such as oppressive working conditions and high levels of competition for achievement. Finally, team contests may be seen as less controlling of individual behavior, providing more role flexibility, and thus more intrinsically rewarding [START_REF] Deci | The Psychology of Self-Determination[END_REF].

Frequency (low or high) is not very important for inside salespeople. In contrast to the findings of the exploratory study, which revealed the weariness caused by contests held simultaneously, the results here show that inside salespeople prefer a high frequency. This finding may be explained by the greater chance of winning a prize when there are more contests and the possibility of putting a lot of effort into contests they believe they can win. Given lower statistical power, however, we are hesitant to recommend any specific management action strongly.

With regard to the type of rewards, the results of this study are interesting in several aspects. On the one hand, and contrary to the recommendations of [START_REF] Moss | Under Construction: The Continuing Evolution of Job Structures in Call Centers[END_REF], it seems that salary increases are inside salespeople's preferred reward, considerably ahead of career opportunities. This finding is especially significant for call center managers, who have difficulty in finding career opportunities for all agents due to the very flat and hierarchized pyramidal organizational structure of call centers.

This preference is accompanied by the preference for gift certificates, which can be freely cashed in, rather than gifts chosen by the organizer or selected from a catalog. This makes intuitive sense as the inside salesperson has more options, making the reward more personalized, valued, and appreciated.

Another interesting result which calls for further study is the link between age and the preference for recognition rather than salary increases. Although its explanatory power may be weak, it nonetheless suggests that other possible types of reward can be developed by call center managers for older groups. With the passage of time, inside salespeople may begin to prefer rewards that enhance intrinsic motivation. In this respect, [START_REF] Lopez | Reward Preferences of Salespeople: How do Commissions Rate?[END_REF] recommend looking closely at such linkages.

Studies bringing together the inside salesperson's career path and rewards could shed light on these questions.

liMitAtiONs AND FUrtHer reseArcH

This study has a certain number of limitations, some of which suggest further research questions. The size of the sample is one weakness, along with the fact that they came from two firms. A study of inside salespeople with a larger number of individuals and/or a crosssectional sample would complement this experiment by confirming or refuting our initial results.

It would also be interesting to enrich this study by extending the number of configurations and looking at further attributes and other modalities through a fractional plan. We could, for example, consider taking into account the duration of the contest, alternative formats, or the type of objectives. It would also be interesting to examine the budget and the prize structure. A study by Lim and colleagues (2009) shows salespeople's reactions vary according to the number of winners, the type of competition, and the value of the winnings at each result level.

The term "call center" covers a wide range of situations both organizationally and in terms of their business. Frenkel and colleagues (1998) demonstrate this diversity, with highly standardized job situations contrasting with contexts where greater empowerment is the rule. In the latter case, this has repercussions on agent's behavior and satisfaction levels. Moreover, in terms of the call center's business, even if we focus on those dedicated to selling or conducting marketing operations, it would be productive to consider other characteristics of call centers; for example, the nature of the calls (incoming or outgoing), the type of marketing activity (filling orders, giving instructions, asking for commercial information and target descriptions, etc.), the business sector (B-to-B or B-to-C), and so on. This great diversity of call centers is one of the variables that potentially can influence the type of sales contest preferred by inside salespeople.

Finally, taking account of an international context could also lead to interesting managerial implications. In their study of remuneration packages, Segalla and colleagues (2006) conclude that there are different preferences depending on the country of origin of salespeople and their managers. For example, German marketing managers are more inclined to prefer incentive-based schemes than are Anglo-Saxon managers. On the other hand, again according to [START_REF] Segalla | A Cross-National Investigation of Incentive Sales Compensation[END_REF], the British are more individualistic than other European nationalities. Hence, an international context, such as can be found in some call centers where a large number of nationalities work together, could bring about significant differences resulting in a more sophisticated management of sales contests in view of the different cultures present in the call center. In a business sector where Taylorist methods persist, a wide view of the job and its conditions can lead to a better understanding of the motivation of the inside salesperson.

Firms

  often use a combination of bonuses, gifts, gift certificates, and trips at different levels of the competition. This structuring of different rewards at different levels is recommended by managers since it gives a maximum number of people a chance of winning a contest. But the question still exists as to what type of reward really motivates salespeople during a contest. Taken in total, the results of what is known about sales contests and preferred rewards are clearly mixed and likely limited in their generalizability to call center salespeople. Given the uncertainty on most of the dimensions of interest to us in this research, we felt the necessity of approaching this research endeavor as exploratory, and propose the following research questions on reward preferences: RQ5: What are inside salespeople's preferences in regard to the various remuneration options that can be deployed in a call center? RQ6: What are inside salespeople's preferences in regard to the various gift options in a contest? RQ7: Do certain inside salesperson profiles (primarily demographic characteristics) indicate preferences for particular types of reward or remuneration? eMPiricAl stUDY: cONtest DesiGN & reWArD PreFereNces

*

  Significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%

Table 1 Summary of Inside Salespeople's Preferences According to Alternatives Offered (RQ5)

 1

		Average	About						Greatly
		preference	the same					preferred
		score
	Alternatives offered	N	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
	Salary increase	127
	or	(66%)
	Career opportunity	64 (34%)

Table 2 Summary of Inside Salespeople's Preferences According to Alternatives Offered (RQ6)

 2

			Mean	About					Greatly
			preference	the same					preferred
	Alternatives offered	n		1	2	3	4	5	6	7
	Gift certificate	172 (92%)	6.21
	or
	Gift chosen by the	14 (8%)
	organizer

Table 3 Results of the Logistic Regression Between Preferences and Individual Variables (RQ7)

 3

	28