Before Sales Comes Rapport - Client Briefing
Executive Summary
Rapport is a familiar concept, used in everyday conversation to describe interactions with people. Psychologists try to develop rapport with their clients, sales representatives use rapport to deepen their relationship with customers and increase sales, and new acquaintances gauge the presence of rapport to infer the future of their relationships. Indeed, many people in varying contexts frequently use the concept of rapport. It has been acknowledged that most people can identify when rapport is present in a relationship, yet find it difficult to provide a precise definition (Gremler & Gwinner, 2000).
More recently, the concept of rapport has been clearly defined, measured and recognised as important to business relationships. It appears that rapport has significant implications for the conduct of business. Gremler & Gwinner, 2000 established a two-tier model of rapport for business, with a minimum, basic level relating to mutually enjoyable interaction, and a higher level involving a connection with customers. An enjoyable interaction was centred on a feeling of friendliness, and liking one another, while a personal connection went deeper, representing a bond or affiliation between the parties. Rapport has been demonstrated to have a significant impact on positive organisational outcomes, such as customer satisfaction, advocacy and loyalty.
Insight gained from the research conducted by Forethought Research (Forethought) suggests that sales executives working in a business-to-business context have an opportunity to develop rapport with their customers.
The Forethought study dissected the familiar relationship aspect – rapport – and conducted an investigation as to what mediated or influenced its two dimensions, as defined by Gremmler & Gwinner (2000), and distinguished between these two dimensions; enjoyable interaction and personal connection. Benevolence, frequent contact and personal interests predicted the personal connection dimension of rapport, while only benevolence and frequency of contact influenced the enjoyable interaction dimension of rapport. Also, customers perceived significantly lower levels of personal connection than their respective sales executives.
In addition, the two dimensions of rapport were linked to consequential business outcomes. The enjoyable interaction dimension was found to be only predictive of customer satisfaction; to achieve the outcomes of customer advocacy and loyalty, the study found that sales executives must achieve personal connection. This suggests that to truly influence business outcomes and achieve positive recommendations or loyalty, sales executives need to progress from the basic enjoyable interaction to a higher level of rapport, attaining a deeper bond or affiliation with their customers.
This study indicates that rapport has significant implications for conducting a successful relationship. As such, organisations should assess and develop the rapport performance of sales executives working in a business-to-business context, and indeed, review management’s ability to influence relationships with clients by rewarding employees based on their relationships, or even selecting sales staff based on their capability of delivering on rapport.
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