Examining the influence of salesperson performance on anticipation of future interaction and repurchase intention: A study of customer perception in the context of the retail industry in Vietnam.

This research is primarily concerned with salesperson performance and its influence oncustomer’s anticipation of future interaction and repurchase intention.Salesperson performance is an integral part of the organisation's operating activities.Most of the salesperson's performance studies are related to the development of a salesstrategy, salespeople's skills, and experience. Salesperson performance as a signal ofservice quality, communicates the company's value and quality to customers (Hartline etal., 2003; Nunkoo et al., 2020). Its importance on profitability and organisational successhas received positive attention in recent years, however, explanations of salespersonperformance and its relation to antecedents, and consequences factors are still limited.Academe and practitioner also realised the relationship between salesperson performanceand anticipation of future interaction and repurchase intention, but few studies actuallysupport this assumption. This research, therefore, will attempt to fill this gap and make iteasier to understand the concept of salesperson performance, its antecedents, andconsequences as well as focusing on anticipation of future interaction and repurchaseintention as a consequence of the consumer perspective.This study applied mixed methods designs including qualitative and quantitativeresearch. Quantitative research was mainly focused on this study and was reinforced byfindings from in-depth interviews of the exploratory phase (qualitative research). Thestudy’s conceptual framework was constructed using both the existing body of literatureand a qualitative investigation. In the second phase, the framework will be tested byconducting a survey with 385 customers in Vietnam, determining their awareness of theimpact of salesperson performance on future interaction and repurchase intention. Anappropriate sample size was useful for researchers to examine the problem and come upwith comprehensive solutions through performing multivariate analysis of the data. Itincluded exploratory factor analysis (EFA), Cronbach-alpha, confirmatory factor analysis(CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). These were the basic techniques used tohelp assess the reliability, validity of a scale, as well as to examine the relationshipbetween the structures formed in a study. The application of SEM enabled researchers toanalyse survey data and investigate complex relationships in statistical hypotheses. Themodel demonstrated a good fit with the data collected, and the convergence, discriminant,nominal validity as well as reliability were also guaranteed.The literature and the statistical results indicate that customer orientation, value-basedselling, sales skill, adaptive selling behaviour are the four main factors that have a directimpact on salesperson performance. The relationship between salesperson performanceand its consequences was also confirmed through hypothesis testing. Salespersonperformance was found to be positively related to anticipation of future interaction andsatisfaction with salesperson. Besides, a relationship between anticipation of futureinteraction and repurchase intention has been demonstrated.This study has contributed significantly to humanity knowledge by showing howsalesperson performance positively affects the anticipation of future interaction andrepurchase intention. It provides certain theoretical contributions to literature such astheory development, conceptualisation and measurement, theory testing andgeneralisation. As for the methodology, this investigation offered a more extensiveunderstanding of the marketing sector, the company's functional quality, and salespersonperformance literature. It also provides management implications, supporting managers'understanding of the impacts surrounding salesperson performance, its relationship withthe antecedent and consequences factors. This understanding aids managers inconsidering and developing salespeople's ability to enhance customers' anticipation offuture interaction and repurchase intention. This study's results also have high practicalvalue for researchers to be able to make outstanding findings in the future.The study results, however, also have certain limitations found in the sampling/analyticaland measurement methods. The instructions are provided in the hope of promptingfurther investigations to strengthen knowledge about salesperson performance and itsantecedents and consequences.