Salespersons often spend time and money giving prospective buyers compliments such as kind words, meals and gifts. Though prior research has shown that compliments will influence a prospective buyer’s decision, it is unknown the extent to which salespersons should make these investments. In this paper, we develop an analytical model to examine how seller and buyer characteristics affect the equilibrium provision of compliments by the seller. We establish that the optimal magnitude of compliments is non-monotonic in the buyer’s sensitivity to compliments. We identify conditions for when a seller of a high-quality product will offer greater (or lesser) compliments than a seller of a lower quality product. We show that, under certain conditions, an uninformed buyer earns greater utility than a buyer who knows the quality of the seller’s product. The findings have implications for sellers in their choice of compliments and buyers in the inferences they draw from the compliments received.

中文翻译：

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销售策略上的称赞

销售人员经常花时间和金钱给潜在的买家称赞，例如客气的话，饭菜和礼物。尽管先前的研究表明，称赞会影响潜在购买者的决定，但尚不清楚销售人员应在多大程度上进行这些投资。在本文中，我们建立了一个分析模型，以检验卖方和买方的特征如何影响卖方对称赞的均衡提供。我们确定，在买方对赞美的敏感性方面，赞美的最佳幅度不是单调的。我们确定优质产品的卖方何时会比劣质产品的卖方提供更多（或更少）称赞的条件。我们表明，在一定条件下，不知情的买方比知道卖方产品质量的买方获得更大的效用。