Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers

1. Abstract

The Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers (SRTOC) scale is a psychometric instrument developed by Molly R. Burchett, Brian R. Murtha, and Ajay K. Kohli (2023) to quantify a focal customer’s subjective perception of how courteously, equitably, and respectfully a frontline sales professional treats a secondary customer within a shared commercial environment. Traditionally, personal selling and service literature has operated under a strict dyadic paradigm, conceptualizing sales interactions exclusively between a single salesperson and a single focal buyer. However, retail, hospitality, automotive, financial, and healthcare settings are intrinsically triadic or multi-actor environments where consumers routinely observe how service personnel interact with third-party shoppers. Grounded in social information processing theory, third-party justice theory, and vicarious social learning, the SRTOC scale captures an observer’s deontic and interpersonal evaluations of seller behavior outside the immediate dyad. Methodologically developed through a rigorous multi-stage dissertation protocol encompassing qualitative elicitation, laboratory simulations, cross-sectional surveys, and field validation, the instrument operationalizes perceived respect through multi-item reflective indicators scored on a standard 7-point Likert continuum. Psychometric evaluation confirms an exceptional level of internal consistency (Cronbach’s α typically exceeding .90; composite reliability > .91), robust unidimensionality via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA with excellent model fit: CFI > .97, TLI > .96, RMSEA < .05), and distinct convergent and discriminant validity against related constructs such as property-directed selling conduct, salesperson competence, and general store atmospherics. The SRTOC scale equips researchers and organizational diagnosticians with a validated diagnostic metric to evaluate how peripheral frontline encounters spill over to influence focal customer trust, brand evaluations, vicarious customer satisfaction, and relational longevity.

2. Keywords

Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers, Secondary Selling, Triadic Service Encounters, Third-Party Justice, Vicarious Customer Experience, Frontline Service Encounters, Deontic Justice, Observational Learning, Customer-Salesperson Dyad, Psychometrics

3. Authors

The scale was developed and psychometrically validated by a research team specializing in marketing strategy, personal selling, and organizational behavior:

• Molly R. Burchett, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor of Marketing, College of Business, University of Wyoming (formerly doctoral candidate at the University of Kentucky). Her research investigates frontline selling strategies, secondary selling dynamics, nonverbal communication, and social perception in commercial ecosystems.
• Brian R. Murtha, Ph.D. – Carol Martin Gatton Endowed Professor of Marketing, Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky. His scholarship focuses on organizational frontlines, personal selling, sales management, and buyer-seller relationships.
• Ajay K. Kohli, Ph.D. – Gary T. and Carolyn R. Jones Chair in Marketing, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology. A world-renowned marketing scholar and former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Marketing, his research centers on market orientation, customer solutions, sales management, and organizational learning.

4. Purpose

For decades, empirical paradigms in personal selling and service management have suffered from what marketing scholars identify as “dyadic myopia”—the implicit, unexamined assumption that frontline service interactions occur within an isolated vacuum comprising exactly one seller and one buyer. In real-world market ecosystems, however, sales floors are inherently social, multi-actor settings. While waiting for service, browsing merchandise, or negotiating contracts, focal customers constantly witness how sales representatives treat other shoppers—individuals termed “secondary customers.” The primary purpose of the Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers scale is to provide a rigorous, theoretically grounded psychometric instrument capable of measuring an observer’s direct perception of a salesperson’s dignity, politeness, attentiveness, and moral regard toward secondary patrons during live, co-present retail interactions.

From a theoretical perspective, the instrument addresses how social information cues outside the primary dyad influence focal consumer cognition. When a focal customer witnesses a salesperson dismiss, mock, neglect, or patronize another customer, that observer extracts diagnostic inferences regarding the salesperson’s underlying moral character, authenticity, and long-term reliability. Conversely, witnessing genuine respect, patience, and non-discriminatory civility toward another consumer fosters vicarious reassurance. The purpose of measuring this construct is therefore twofold: to capture observational interpersonal justice and to explain unexplained variances in focal customer downstream outcomes—such as patronage intentions, price sensitivity, word-of-mouth recommendations, and institutional trust—that dyadic variables fail to account for.

In applied organizational diagnostics and retail analytics, the SRTOC scale serves vital managerial functions. Commercial enterprises frequently experience customer attrition despite frontline staff maintaining courteous behavior toward the departing individual. The SRTOC scale offers human resource managers, retail consultants, and sales directors an analytical tool to diagnose whether frontline personnel exhibit situational hypocrisy or selective courtesy—treating high-value prospects with deference while treating peripheral, less affluent, or difficult customers with condescension. By systematically capturing how respect is displayed across the sales floor, organizational leadership can design evidence-based frontline training curricula, ethical compliance frameworks, and holistic performance evaluation scorecards that cultivate a comprehensive culture of respect.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct operationalized by the Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers scale is an observer-centric, socio-cognitive evaluation of interpersonal treatment. Respect, within socio-psychological literature, denotes the recognition of an individual’s unconditional human dignity, intrinsic worth, and social standing (Darwall, 1977). When extended to frontline commercial encounters, salesperson respect encompasses verbal civility, emotional attentiveness, equitable patience, and the conspicuous absence of derogatory or dismissive behavioral cues. In the context of secondary selling, the SRTOC construct does not assess how the focal customer was personally addressed; rather, it measures the focal customer’s cognitive attribution of the salesperson’s interpersonal posture toward a third party.

The construct is constituted by several interrelated behavioral and attributional facets:

• Interpersonal Civility and Politeness: The degree to which the frontline salesperson employs courteous linguistic formulations, maintains an unhurried and polite demeanor, and avoids condescending tones when addressing the secondary customer.
• Equitable Regard and Attentiveness: The observer’s assessment that the salesperson takes the secondary customer’s inquiries, complaints, or presence seriously, rather than marginalizing them as an unwanted interruption to higher-priority tasks.
• Non-Discriminatory Dignity: The perception that the salesperson provides uniform human dignity regardless of the secondary customer’s observable demographic characteristics, socioeconomic appearance, shopping sophistication, or purchasing potential.
• Deontic Propriety: The evaluation that the salesperson conforms to universal moral duties and social codes governing how human beings ought to treat one another in public spaces, transcending purely transactional incentives.

It is psychometrically imperative to distinguish the SRTOC construct from related yet conceptually distinct frontline evaluations. First, it differs from perceived salesperson competence, which reflects task-oriented instrumental capability, product knowledge, and technical proficiency. A salesperson may demonstrate flawless technical competence while simultaneously treating a confused secondary shopper with visible contempt. Second, it is structurally distinct from property-directed selling conduct—a companion construct developed by Burchett et al. (2023) that captures how a salesperson handles physical merchandise, facilities, and personal possessions. Third, it is conceptually separate from direct focal customer interpersonal justice, which represents self-relevant, first-party treatment rather than vicarious, third-party observation.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture undergirding the Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers scale integrates three foundational paradigms from social psychology and organizational science:

Social Information Processing (SIP) Theory

Formulated by Salancik and Pfeffer (1978), Social Information Processing Theory asserts that individuals adapt their attitudes, behavioral intentions, and belief systems in response to contextual social cues observed within their immediate environment. In a retail or service environment, focal customers do not form impressions solely through isolated introspection. Instead, they actively scan the surrounding social ecology for diagnostic cues regarding the setting’s social norms, safety, and institutional ethics. An encounter between a frontline employee and a secondary customer provides rich, unvarnished social information. Because direct interactions with a focal customer can be easily faked or masked by transactional opportunism (e.g., “surface acting” to close an immediate deal), observing how that same employee treats a secondary customer offers an unfiltered window into the seller’s true underlying dispositions.

Deontic and Third-Party Justice Theory

The instrument draws heavily from modern organizational justice theory, specifically the concept of deontic justice (Cropanzano, Goldman, & Folger, 2003; Folger, 2001). Classic justice frameworks (distributive, procedural, and interactional) historically assumed that individuals only care about fairness when their personal self-interest or social identity is directly implicated. Conversely, deontic justice theory posits that human beings possess an innate, evolved moral sensitivity that triggers psychological reactions whenever universal standards of moral decency and human dignity are violated, even if the observer suffers no material harm whatsoever. When an observer watches a salesperson mistreat a secondary customer, the observer experiences vicarious moral outrage or cognitive dissonance, leading to negative attributions toward the enterprise. Conversely, observing genuine respect validates the observer’s deontic expectations, cultivating psychological safety and relational benevolence.

Social Learning and Vicarious Attribution Theory

Rooted in Bandura’s (1977) foundational social learning theory and Kelley’s (1967) attribution models, individuals continuously engage in vicarious learning through modeled behavior. When applied to buyer-seller dyads, the focal customer observes the salesperson’s interaction with a third party to assess whether the salesperson’s courtesies toward themselves are genuine or purely manipulative. If the salesperson displays high respect across multiple, diverse customer encounters (high consensus and consistency across targets), the focal customer makes an internal, stable attribution: “This salesperson is intrinsically honest, respectful, and ethical.” If the salesperson treats the focal buyer with lavish attention but turns around and scoffs at a secondary buyer (low consistency across actors), the observer makes an unstable, opportunistic attribution: “This salesperson is merely putting on an act to extract my money.”

7. Validity

The construct validity of the Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers scale was systematically demonstrated across a rigorous progression of qualitative exploratory studies, laboratory experiments, online randomized controlled trials, and multi-industry field studies conducted by Burchett, Murtha, and Kohli (2023).

Content and Face Validity

Initial content validation followed Churchill’s (1979) paradigm for scale development. An extensive qualitative elicitation phase involving in-depth interviews with consumers, frontline sales professionals, and store managers generated an initial pool of candidate items reflecting non-dyadic behaviors. A panel of academic experts in sales management and consumer behavior evaluated the items for clarity, semantic overlap, domain coverage, and face validity. Items failing to capture the unique interpersonal nature of respect toward non-focal actors or exhibiting confounding task-related associations were systematically eliminated.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Convergent validity was empirically supported across multiple samples. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that all reflective indicators loaded heavily and significantly on their designated SRTOC factor (standardized loadings consistently ranging between .82 and .94, all p < .001). The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values consistently exceeded the recommended .50 benchmark (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), typically reaching values above .70, confirming that the scale indicators account for the vast majority of variance in the underlying latent construct.

Discriminant validity was verified through multiple statistical techniques:

• Fornell-Larcker Criterion: In all structural model estimations, the square root of the AVE for the SRTOC construct was substantially greater than any bivariate correlation between SRTOC and adjacent latent constructs, including property-directed selling conduct, focal customer interpersonal treatment, perceived salesperson competence, and baseline retail store affect.
• Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio of Correlations (HTMT): HTMT values between SRTOC and related frontline constructs consistently remained below the conservative .85 threshold, demonstrating that the scale operationalizes a statistically distinct construct rather than capturing general affective halo effects.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

The scale exhibited exceptional predictive validity across experimental and cross-sectional investigations. Hierarchical linear regressions and structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that higher focal customer ratings on the SRTOC scale significantly predicted heightened focal customer trust in the salesperson (β ≈ .34 to .48, p < .001), increased willingness to pay without demanding excessive discounts, heightened store patronage intentions, and positive word-of-mouth advocacy. Crucially, when focal customer direct treatment was held constant in controlled experimental vignettes, variations in SRTOC accounted for statistically significant incremental variance in focal customer brand evaluations, demonstrating that focal evaluations are profoundly influenced by observing third-party respect.

8. Reliability

The reliability of the Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers scale has been thoroughly established across diverse empirical settings, sample populations, and experimental paradigms.

Internal Consistency Metrics

Across the multi-study validation process reported by Burchett et al. (2023), the scale consistently yielded high internal consistency indices:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): Consistently recorded between .89 and .95 across both laboratory samples and real-world consumer surveys, far surpassing the standard psychometric threshold of .70 recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994).
• Composite Reliability (CR): Estimated within CFA measurement models, CR values routinely exceeded .90 (often reaching .93 to .96), indicating high latent construct reliability.
• McDonald’s Omega (ω): When calculated to account for tau-equivalence assumptions, McDonald’s ω values closely mirrored the composite reliability figures (> .91), demonstrating that the scale indicators reliably measure the intended construct without severe violation of psychometric assumptions.

Measurement Invariance and Standard Error

Tests for measurement invariance (configural, metric, and scalar) confirmed that the SRTOC scale functions equivalently across different customer demographic groups (e.g., gender, age cohorts) and distinct retail environments (e.g., consumer electronics, automotive showrooms, luxury apparel). The Standard Error of Measurement (SEM) remained minimal across latent score distributions, confirming that the tool reliably differentiates between high and low frontline respect without significant measurement attenuation.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent dimensionality of the Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers scale was rigorously analyzed using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) during initial purification and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) during final validation phases.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During the scale development phase, candidate items were administered to consumer samples observing recorded video vignettes of retail interactions. Principal axis factoring with oblique rotation (Promax) was utilized to examine the underlying factor structure. The analysis revealed a dominant single-factor solution:

• The initial eigenvalue for the first factor was markedly high (> 4.2), explaining over 70% of the total variance.
• Subsequent eigenvalues dropped sharply below 0.65, presenting a clear scree plot elbow at the second factor.
• All retained items exhibited high primary factor loadings (> .80) with negligible cross-loadings (< .20) on extraneous dimensions, verifying the psychometric unidimensionality of perceived third-party respect.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Fit Indices

To evaluate the structural integrity of the final measurement model, full-information maximum likelihood CFA was estimated across independent validation datasets. The measurement model demonstrated fit to the empirical data:

• Relative Chi-Square (χ²/df): Ratios ranged between 1.15 and 2.10 (well below the conservative ceiling of 3.0).
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Consistently > .97 (frequently exceeding .98), indicating high model specification.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Consistently > .96, confirming robust incremental fit relative to a null baseline model.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Point estimates ranged between .032 and .049 with 90% confidence intervals bounded below .06, meeting standard criteria for close approximate fit.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Values remained below .035, confirming low residual variance between observed and implied covariance matrices.

Standardized item factor loadings across all confirmatory models were consistently high (λ ≥ .81, p < .001), indicating strong correlation between the observable manifest items and the underlying latent construct.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers instrument is a structured, respondent-administered survey questionnaire designed for deployment following a live retail visit, field observation, or experimental exposure to simulated frontline service environments.

Administrative and Structural Specifications

• Instrument Type: Observer-Rated Psychometric Survey / Psychological Scale.
• Target Population: Adult consumers, retail mystery shoppers, or experimental subjects who have witnessed an interaction between a frontline sales representative and a third-party (secondary) customer.
• Administration Modality: Self-administered via computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI), paper-and-pencil retail intercept surveys, or field audit protocols.
• Estimated Completion Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
• Number of Core Latent Dimensions: 1 (Unidimensional construct capturing perceived respect, politeness, and dignity toward secondary customers).
• Response Continuum: 7-point Likert-type response scale anchored typically as follows:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat Disagree
  • 4 = Neither Agree nor Disagree (Neutral)
  • 5 = Somewhat Agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly Agree

Scoring and Aggregation Protocol

• Scoring Direction: All primary items are framed positively. Higher scores reflect greater perceived respect, courtesy, and dignity toward the secondary customer.
• Composite Score Calculation: A continuous mean composite score is generated by summing the numerical ratings of the items and dividing by the total number of items:
  
  SRTOC Composite = (∑ Item Responses) / N
• Interpretation Thresholds:
  • 1.00 – 2.99: Severe Disrespect / Observable Incivility (High risk of focal customer alienation, negative moral attribution, and brand damage).
  • 3.00 – 4.99: Ambivalent / Transactionally Neutral Conduct (Absence of overt disrespect, but lacking positive interpersonal warmth).
  • 5.00 – 7.00: High Interpersonal Respect and Equity (Strong positive vicarious reassurance, fostering elevated trust and commercial advocacy).

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Salesperson Respect Toward Other Customers scale was formally published in 2023 in the Journal of Marketing, the premier peer-reviewed scholarly journal of the American Marketing Association (AMA):

• Test Year of Publication: 2023.
• Original Publication Venue: Journal of Marketing, Vol. 87, Issue 4, pp. 575–600.
• Intellectual Property and Copyright: The academic article and original psychometric development are copyrighted by the American Marketing Association (© 2023 AMA).
• Permissions and Academic Licensing: Under standard scholarly fair use guidelines, the scale may be utilized free of royalty fees by independent researchers, university faculty, doctoral students, and non-profit investigators for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical purposes, and scientific replication, provided appropriate formal citation is attributed to Burchett, Murtha, and Kohli (2023).
• Commercial and Proprietary Enterprise Use: Organizations intending to embed the measurement battery into commercial customer experience (CX) audit software, fee-based mystery shopping platforms, or proprietary human resource assessment systems should obtain formal written licensing or copyright clearance from the American Marketing Association and contact the corresponding authors directly.

12. References

The theoretical foundations, methodological framework, and psychometric validation of the SRTOC scale are established across the following academic literature:

• Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Prentice-Hall.
• Burchett, M. R., Murtha, B. R., & Kohli, A. K. (2023). Secondary selling: Beyond the salesperson–customer dyad. Journal of Marketing, 87(4), 575–600. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221141753
• Churchill, G. A., Jr. (1979). A paradigm for developing better measures of marketing constructs. Journal of Marketing Research, 16(1), 64–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224377901600110
• Cropanzano, R., Goldman, B., & Folger, R. (2003). Deontic justice: The role of a moral requirement in the workplace. Journal of Business and Psychology, 18(1), 101–109. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025004209488
• Darwall, S. L. (1977). Two kinds of respect. Ethics, 88(1), 36–49. https://doi.org/10.1086/292054
• Folger, R. (2001). Fairness as deonance. In S. W. Gilliland, D. D. Steiner, & D. P. Skarlicki (Eds.), Research in social issues in management: Theoretical and cultural perspectives on organizational justice (pp. 3–33). Information Age Publishing.
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Kelley, H. H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. In D. Levine (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation (Vol. 15, pp. 192–238). University of Nebraska Press.
• Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
• Salancik, G. R., & Pfeffer, J. (1978). A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23(2), 224–253. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392563
• Skarlicki, D. P., & Kulik, C. T. (2004). Third-party reactions to employee (mis)treatment: A justice perspective. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, 23, 183–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-7301(04)23005-9

13. Items of the Scale