Janakiraman, NarayanBullemore, JorgeValenzuela-Fernández, LeslierFernando Jaramillo, Jorge2020-10-152020-10-152019Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 36 no. 1https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-11-2016-2000http://hdl.handle.net/11447/3479Customer evaluation of service provider’s offer quality (OQ) can vary even when there is no tangible difference in quality. This is because a customer’s assessment of quality also depends on their attitude toward the salesperson (AS) and their perception of the extent to which the salesperson is involved in active empathetic listening (AEL), and in sales perseverance (SP). We use three multi method data samples to provide support for this including - dyadic data that matches salesperson and customer perceptions of a banking service, an experiment and an implicit association test. Our findings suggest that when AS is positive, greater levels of AEL can lead to higher OQ, while higher levels of SP can be detrimental. Further, we also show using the implicit association test, that greater familiarity with the salesperson can lead to greater associations with empathetic learning and weaker associations with sales perseverance.38 p.enService Quality EvaluationsAttitude toward the salespersonListeningPerseveranceArticle