The impact of sales encounter on brand loyalty

Gaining and sustaining brand loyalty is a key challenge in increasingly competitive markets. Many marketing researchers as well as practitioners emphasize the critical role of the interpersonal interaction between the customer and the salesperson to influence customer satisfaction, generate favorable brand attitudes and to strengthen the bond between the customers and the brand. So far, empirical research that investigates how sales encounters impact brand loyalty by enhancing customer satisfaction with the sales encounter is missing. Using data from 154 dyads of customers and salespersons of a large automobile brand, this study shows that the perceptions of both the customer and the salesperson regarding the sales encounter per-formance impact encounter satisfaction. Sales encounter satisfaction, in turn, leads to brand loyalty by enhancing brand attitude and salesperson loyalty.