Seeking Advice From Electronic And Human Sales People
November 1, 2000
University Park, Pa--More companies are utilizing websites as sales tools, but the Internet will not make salespeople extinct in the near future. While more customers can now get product information and recommendations from the "electronic salespeople" at websites, there's little evidence that customers are getting better advice, according to two marketing professors in Penn State's Smeal College of Business Administration. 

Mita Sujan, professor of marketing in Penn State's Smeal College of Business Administration, and Harish Sujan, associate professor of marketing in Penn State's Smeal College of Business Administration, research web strategies and sales. 

"Companies are setting up websites to attract customers, make sales and to provide customers greater access to information and advice," says Harish Sujan. For example, it is possible at http://www.amazon.com to get advice on what books to buy. The electronic salesperson bases that advice on a customer's purchases in the past. Music lovers can access http://www.ratingzone.com to get advice on CDs to buy that is also based on their past CD purchases. 

"These websites receive lots of hits. But a website that gathers lots of hits from potential customers seeking advice does not translate into sales," says Mita Sujan.

Some of their on-going research on websites and sales suggests:

* Advice is accepted not only because the source is good (credible) but also because of the way it is presented. "For example, if http://www.ratingzone.com provides a list of new CDs you should consider buying, you would be more likely to accept this advice if some of the CDs you already own are added to this list and if you are told that the same review source recommends both the old and new CDs," says Mita.

* Although the process is boring and can grate on your sensibilities, the more information you provide the electronic agent, the more likely you are to accept this source as credible.

* If you provide information to the electronic agents at websites by stories of how you imagine you would feel while listening to music recommended, rather than through rating scales, you are more likely to listen to the agent's advice.

Although research will take researchers in the direction of designing better electronic agents or robots, will robots ever outdo human agents? Will they become the 'people' we seek advice from?

"They are likely to know more, by virtue of having larger and more reliable memories. They are likely to be able to do more thinking, by virtue of having greater computational capacity. Thus, in theory, they should offer better advice," says Harish.

Anybody who has encountered a computer crash or who has misspelled a computer command, however, knows that computers are not particularly sensitive or kind. They think a lot and do so at great speed, but they are "dumb" when it comes to developing relationships, notes Harish. Although other humans are sometimes disagreeable and even disobedient, they are and will be the ones we wish to have a relationship with if we look for sensitivity and an exchange of emotion.

"While riding the frenzy to keep up with developments in the electronic age, we may wish to encourage research in this converging economy that sees the computer as an aid to human intelligence, particular emotional intelligence, not as a benchmark of intelligence," says Harish.

-SMEAL-

Editors: For more information, please contact Mita Sujan at or 814-863-4250. Harish Sujan is at or 814-863-3795. For copies of their past papers on this topic, contact Steve Infanti of the Smeal College External Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or