Give a clear reason for a recommendation
Across three online experiments, Ge and Jiang compared default product recommendations with and without reasons. Reasoned recommendations could reduce perceived pressure and encourage stated choices of green products.
For sales practice: Make the value and reason for a proposed next step concrete. An alternative should remain a genuine option.
Evidence and limitations: Hypothetical online shopping choices, not phone appointments. Effects depended on the product context.
More words do not automatically make a better dialogue
Landesvatter and Bauer compared voice and text responses in a survey with 1,461 participants. Spoken answers were longer and more linguistically informative for several questions, but far fewer people provided voice answers.
For sales practice: Ask openly, let people finish and respond to what they say. Assess conversation quality through relevance and what you learn.
Evidence and limitations: The study concerns smartphone surveys. Answer length and vocabulary diversity do not establish buying intent or better sales conversations.
Emotion regulation needs more than a prompt
In a laboratory study of 101 students, brief explanations and prompts about emotion regulation produced little overall change in measured emotional responses. Responses also differed between individuals.
For sales practice: Practise preparation and resets, observe them and adapt them to the individual. A reminder alone does not replace practice.
Evidence and limitations: The study examined reactions to fear-inducing films, not cold calling or a complete training programme.