Skip to main content

How to Find Rude Salespeople

 
Want a customer service employee who will drive you completely stark-raving nuts with their rude behavior?
 
Go with the candidate with the best credit score.

Really. 
That is the conclusion of Jeremy Bernerth; LSU Assistant Professor in the E. J. Ourso College of Business Daniel Whitman; Shannon Taylor of Northern Illinois University; and H. Jack Walker of Texas Tech University in a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

You want a jerk of a customer service rep who will drive away customers?   Hire the guy or gal with a great credit score.   Want an effective, warm communicator whom your customers will love?  You got it.  The one with the so-so credit score.

Here’s what led the researchers to this conclusion:  "With regards to personality and credit -- it makes sense that conscientiousness is related to good credit, but what was really interesting was that agreeableness was negatively related to your credit score," said Jeremy Bernerth.   "That suggests easy-going individuals actually have worse credit scores than disagreeable and rude individuals.  Agreeable individuals might get themselves in trouble by co-signing loans for friends or family or taking out additional credit cards at the suggestion of store clerks."
Right.

People with poor credit scores tend to be people pleasers, exactly the sort of employee you want in customer service.
“The researchers found no correlation between poor credit scores and bad behavior on the job.”
But wait, there’s more:  contrary to what 60% of all employers who use credit scores think, the researchers found no correlation between poor credit scores and bad behavior on the job. 
 
"It was telling that poor credit scores are not correlated to theft and other deviant work behaviors," said Bernerth. "Most companies attempt to justify the use of credit scores because they think such employees will end up stealing, but our research suggests that is not the case."
 
The researcher’s conclusion: rude people have better credit scores.

So if you want a rude customer service rep, hire the applicant with the good credit score. They'll rob you blind by driving away paying customers.

 
*  *  *  *  *
The Entrepreneur's Bookshelf ~
The more you know about small business management and financing before you start, the more likely you are to succeed.  That's why I urge anyone thinking of starting a business to contact their local Small Business Development Center or Community College.  I have also organized this bookshelf for you at Powell's Books, the world's largest single site new and used bookstore, featuring the latest books on small business start-ups, marketing, and small business money management.   
A Selection Related to this Post:


 
Click on this link to see all the selections on ~

 
* * * * *

Story Source:  Bernerth, Jeremy B.; Taylor, Shannon G.; Walker, H. Jack; Whitman, Daniel S. An empirical investigation of dispositional antecedents andperformance-related outcomes of credit scores.. Journal of Applied Psychology, Oct 24, 2011

Comments

  1. Rude salespeople. This idea shouldn’t even exist if you ask me. Salespeople must be warm communicators who are patient with the consumer’s needs and concerns. They are skilled and professional individuals who hold authority in their products and services while making sure they address their client’s needs. But can one’s credit score really determine how well he is as a salesperson? I wonder about this.

    Guillermina Falkowski

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you follow the author's logic in their study, it does make sense. Warm, open communicators, at least according to this study, tend to make poor credit decisions. As always, these are thinking points for small business owners who make hiring decisions. A single "bad apple" in the public eye can do much damage to the local reputation of a small business, so hiring is a serious decision that can have major impact on the business. ~ Jim

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lucrezia Borgia, Entrepreneur

W ho was Lucrezia Borgia?  Tradition has it that she may have poisoned her second husband, Giovanni Sforza.  Rumor of the day had it that Lucretia had incestuous relations with both her father, Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and her brother, Cesare Borgia.   What is know for certain is that Lucretia was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo, then a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and his mistress,  Vannozza dei Cattanei.  It is known that she was married three times, the first being annulled as never being consummated (despite her giving birth a few months after the annulment).  The second marriage ended in the death of her husband, Giovanni, and her third to  Alfonso d'Este, son of the powerful Duke of Ferrera.  This was also to be Alfonso's third marriage, which ended when Lucrezia dies ten days after she gave birth to a stillborn daughter.  She also had affairs (as did her husbands) with several political figures of the day, and even gave birth to the

Business should embrace 'boomerang employees'

Source:  themajors.net What should you do when an employee leaves. . . and later asks to return? It may be an emotional instinct to react by rejecting their request to return. But why?  If you take it as a personal rejection when an employee leaves, you may be cutting off your own nose to spite your own face. As these studies from the University of Illinois point out employees leaving then asking to return may just be offering you a big compliment to the way you do things.  Perhaps they thought they'd be better off elsewhere only to find they were well off where they started.  Not a bad message for other employees to hear if nothing else. Boomerang Employees   Organizations of all types are beginning to recognize and embrace the value of recruiting and welcoming back former or boomerang employees. From infantry soldiers to chief executives, accountants and professional basketball players, many organizations proactively recruit and rehire former employees as a way t

Consider the role of the family in career planning

Non-work orientations are related to higher career  and life satisfaction The study shows that the salaries of people who have strong non-work orientations are not negatively affected. In addition, they are happier with their career and with life in general. When planning a career, many people take non-work orientations into account, such as family, personal interests and civic engagement. Psychologists from the University of Bern (Switzerland) have found out that people who strongly consider the role of the family in career planning report more satisfaction with their career and their lives in general. Surprisingly, non-work orientations also showed no negative effects on earnings. People differ greatly in terms of how much they consider nonwork roles, such as family, personal interests and civic engagement when making career decisions and planning their career. Up until now, it was unclear how the consideration of nonwork roles affect career success and satisfaction