The Impact of Salespersons’ Interaction on Customer Satisfaction of Textile Shops: A Study in Kiribathgoda Area

:-All businesses are trying to win the market by competing with other rivalries. The Textile industry is not exceptional for that. Textile shops are also one of the well-known retail markets in the industry that depend on customer satisfaction for their success. The main objective of the study is to investigate the impact of salespersons’ interaction on customer satisfaction of textile shops in the Kiribathgoda area since salespersons are the change agents to change the minds of customers. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire among 100 respondents based on the simple random sampling method. Researchers incorporated correlation & regression analyses by using the SPSS version 20.0 software for analyzing the data. Major findings showed that all three dimensions of salespersons’ interaction -Communication skills, Empathy and Trust have a positive relationship with Customer Satisfaction. 61.4% salespersons’ interaction impacted on customer satisfaction and Trust has a higher impact (39.3%) on Customer Satisfaction rather than Communication skills and Empathy.


INTRODUCTION
The textile shops come under the industry of textile, garment and accessories. This is one of the biggest industries in Sri Lanka. It plays a vital role in advancing the Sri Lanka's economy. Clothing is a basic need of all human beings and some people spend more money on garments than their food requirements. It was believed that clothing or garments was first developed even 650 thousand years ago. In today's context, the garment industry is a huge business that added more value to the world economy too. The wholesale clothing supply is increasing worldwide in all the sectors of the industry, whether it can be men's clothing, women's clothing, kids clothing and infant wear. In the textile, garments and accessories business, people can find many individuals and companies which are catering to the business needs of various levels given the value of modern fashion and trends.

Research Problem
In the textile shops salespersons are the employees who directly meet the customers and influence the minds of the customers. Due to the interaction between customers and salespersons is the essential factor for customer satisfaction and increase the sales (Gocek and Beceren, 2012). Hence, salespersons in every textile shop must consider about this factor for their business' success. They work in-between the company and the customers. They are the people who can build the relationship with customers. And also customers always try to measure the company service by evaluating the salespersons services (Basir et al., 2010). Salesperson is the person who can satisfy the customers by providing good service. In this study researchers try to find out how far the salespersons' interaction impact on customer satisfaction. Satisfaction is a phenomenon expressing that the performance and benefits of the products exceed the expectations of the customers (Peter and Olsan, 2005). Literature showed many factors which influence the customer satisfaction in the textile industry (Cuc, 2010). However, there is lack of literature related with the salespersons' interaction and customer satisfaction locally and globally. These literature opened avenues to motivate the researchers to do a study on how the salespersons' interaction impact on customer satisfaction.

Objectives of the Study
 To investigate how far the salespersons' empathy influence to satisfy the customers.  To evaluate how far the salespersons' communication skills satisfy the customers.  To identify the motivation methods of salespersons to improve the customer satisfaction.

Literature Review
There are external customers for business. Hence, every business always tries to understand about their customers mind. Salespersons are the internal customers for the business. Good interaction between customers and salespersons will provide support for easy of the transactions.

Salespersons' Interaction
Salesperson interaction is an important factor in the textile shops. They are the people who directly meet the customers and identify their needs. When buyers enter into the textile shop firstly they meet the salespersons. At once they catch the eyes of buyers, they welcome them and show their first impression towards them. Previous studies found out different factors related with customer satisfaction and salespersons' interaction ( Gocek and Beceren, 2012).
An empirical study on the relationship between sales skills and salesperson performance stated that many companies, salespersons are the most important marketing tool in the interface between the companies and their customers (Basir et. al., 2010). Baldauf and Cravens (2002) explained in their study of the effect of moderators on the salesperson behavior performance and salesperson outcomes performance and sales organization effectiveness relationship: operating at the interface between the organization and its environment, showed salespersons perform important boundary-spanning roles. Good salespersons may offer substantial performance improvements in today's increasingly competitive business environment.
Futrell (2006) explained a top-quality salesperson who maximizes revenues from current existing customers and systematically identifies and manages new prospects well and which will allow a business entity to grow faster than its competitors. The study of the effects of customer expectations and store policies on retail salesperson service, satisfaction and patronage exhibits in a retail store, services can encompass a variety of activities, including salesperson assistance, credit, gift wrapping and package delivery. Within those various activities, salesperson service is important to study (Stanforth and Lennon, 1997). Hence the impact of salesperson behavior is less clear and may have a significant effect on customer satisfaction and future patronage. Research of Reynolds and Beatty (1999) on customer benefit and company consequences of customersalesperson relationships in retailing shows that relationship generate benefits and value to customers were not only on satisfaction but also on loyalty. This research finding also showed that when consumer perceived social benefits and high functional, the consumer will be satisfied by salesperson. Gutman's (1982) study of a means-end chain model based on consumer categorization process indicated consumers choose products or services based on desired benefit. Reynolds and Beatty (1999) further stated that satisfaction with salespersons correlated to satisfaction with the company. They argued that customers' positive feelings towards their salesperson often transferred to the company. McMurry (1961) explained a successful salesperson to be a person who possessed a wooing is coupled by a "compulsive need to win and hold the affection of others". McMurry (1961) further identified some qualities of salesperson, such as a high energy level, self-confidence, a hunger for money, a well established habit for industry and a view of obstacles as challenges. A few years later McMurry's (1961) finding, Mayer and Greenberg (1964) showed that two basic qualities were essential in a good salesperson, such as empathy and ego drive.
Munshi and Hanji (2014) described in their study of A multidimensional subjective scale development for measuring sales performance of retail sales personnel within retail stores, salespeople are the main point of contact for customers and they are responsible for communication, store management, sales activities, solving customers' problems, helping them to make purchase decisions and thereby realizing sales closures and generating sales revenues. The study of Ramayah and Leen (2013) on what drives relationship quality? A study of two retail clothing stores showed for the retail clothing stores, satisfaction and loyalty of a customer are no longer solely depending on the core product (it means apparel) they also on the service encounter which is the time when the customer interacts directly with the sales people and the store's elements. In this regard, it is vital for retailers to acquire knowledge of the factors that determine the relationship quality between service encounter and the customer, in the quest for customer loyalty. A company's success in being able to retain its customers will depend very much on how a company can successfully add value to its customers' shopping experience. The findings of Ramayah and Leen (2013) described trust and satisfaction were the two elements for the quality of relationship. Within their study they explained five variables which influence for the satisfaction such as physical aspects, reliability, personal interaction, problem-solving and policy. Within their study they explained those five variables with the help of others studies. The study of determinations of relationship quality and loyalty in personalized services by Shamdasani and Balakrishnan (2000) exhibits Reliability and personal interaction and problemsolving are the social factors involving the salespeople who are within a store's environment. Reliability is viewed as a combination of keeping promises and performing the services right. Personal interaction involves two sub dimensions such as service personnel inspiring confidence and being courteous. Problem solving addresses the handling of returns and exchanges as well as complaints. Therefore, the service contact personnel's characteristics such as friendliness, confidence, honesty, expertise and knowledge of customers are important as they strongly influence relationship quality. Non-verbal communication includes body movements, voice qualities and physical distance between communicators. The study of Gabbott and Gillian (2001) showed that non-verbal communication channels cover the 70% or even the 90% of workplace communication. An exploratory study on relational selling strategy and key account managers' relational behaviors showed communication is of key significance in the relationship process between buyers and salespersons. It can be perceived as the main element of the satisfaction (Guenzi et al., 2007). (Oliver,1999) explored that loyalty of the business customer is based not only on product features but also on convergence of personal and social forces that exist between professional buyers and key contact personnel within supplier firms. The study of the link between salesperson job satisfaction and customer satisfaction by Homburg and Stock (2004) highlighted the role of key contact personnel in satisfying customers in the business market is an important factor. According to the study of Mohr and Nevin (1990) showed that communication processes underline most aspects of organizational interaction and therefore, are typically viewed as being critical to organizational success.

Trust
The study of Swan et. al., (1999) explained the development of trust between salesperson and their customers has traditionally been considered a critical element in developing and maintaining a successful sales relationship. The trust a customer has in a salesperson is generally thought to be a key determinant of the quality of their relationship. They further showed that customer trust of the salesperson has two components, affective and cognitive. Affective component explains the feeling of secure or insecure about relying on the salesperson, and cognition is the belief that the salesperson has both the necessary competence and motivation to be relied upon. A customer is any person who had, or can have some interaction with a salesperson or salespersons. According to the study of Customersales associate retail relationships explained customer trust in the salesperson is defined as a trust belief by which the salesperson can achieve long-term profit from customers (Beatty et.al., 1996).
Customer trust in the salesperson could increase through repeating deals between the salesperson and customer in which the salesperson seems to be rational, suitably honest, fair, responsible and charitable. The study of Chen and Mau (2009) also supported the above finding in the insurance industry. The trust affects on the loyalty of customers. Therefore, how to create and keep customers' trust in the salesperson and the company is a vital factor to develop a longterm relationship with the customers which leads to the customer satisfaction and retention. Studies show that productivity, income, and profits are positively or negatively impacted depending on the level of trust in the work environment. Trust can be created or destroyed through personal perceptions and behaviors. It is predicated on who we are and how we are raised and is shaped by our experiences and perceptions of others' behavior (Anderson et.al, (1994).

Empathy
Bush et. al., (2001) defined the term empathy as the capability of visibly defined project for the trust of others, to attain and visualize the appropriate assessment of other's beliefs, attitudes and behavior. Davis (1983) also describes empathy in his study of measuring individual differences in empathy: evidence for a multidimensional approach as the response of person towards the acknowledged experiences of others. Based on the study of Empathy development, training and consequences by Goldstein and Michaels (1985) response spread specify two ranges, such as cognitive and local response that is considered as the expertise to be familiar with thinking, emotions and objectives. McBane (1995) explained second type of response within his study of Empathy and the salesperson: A multidimensional perspective, as the psychological response to others. The study of how to measure service orientation by Hogan and Hogan (1984) described the significance of empathy in buyer-seller interaction has been accepted. Ramsey and Sohi (1997) showed mostly results were linked with the influence of empathy on interactions with customers. Effective interpersonal listening and personal selling by Castleberry and Shepherd (1993) conclude that there is a positive relationship between empathy and interactional procedure of workers and consumers. The study of the link between sales people's job satisfaction and customer satisfaction in a business-to-business context: A dyadic analysis by Homburg and Stock (2004) explained lower levels of worker empathy leads to weaker interactional levels of worker and customers and that leads to less customer satisfaction. Furthermore in his study, he described the variable of empathy plays a mediating role between the job satisfaction of workers and Customer satisfaction. The greater degree of empathy of salespersons stimulates the relation of job satisfaction of salespeople and consumer satisfaction. Splauding and Plank (2007) described in order to build and maintain long term profitable customer relationships it is important that salespersons are empathetic towards their customers. In their studies showed that Empathetic salespeople are better able to understand customer's situations by putting themselves in their customer's positions. Further more in doing so, salespeople are better able to understand and recognize customer concerns cognitively and emotionally. The study of Salesperson adaptive selling behavior and customer orientation: A meta-analysis by Franke and Park (2006) found out that the salesperson is more able to customize their product solutions to satisfy customer needs and wants. According to the study of examining the effect of salesperson behavior in a competitive context by Ahearne et. al.,(2007) showed when customers feel that salespeople are empathetic towards them, customers are likely to feel that salespeople care about their points of view and are not just trying to sell their products or services. The studies of Conway and Swift (2000) and Wang (2007) exhibited therefore, salespeople who have higher levels of empathy have fewer barriers to overcome in developing customer satisfaction.
The study of Greenberg and Greenberg (1983) explored when customers feel that salespeople are empathetic towards them, they feel more confident that the salespeople have a better understanding of their concerns and problems.

Customer satisfaction
Usually, all the persons have some expectations about whatever situation faced by them. As a customer he/she also has some expectation when they get the goods or services. If the good or service provider cannot meet their expectations, the customers will not satisfy. Salesperson must find out the importance of the customer satisfaction. In the textile, garments and accessories industry also consider the customer satisfaction as important factor for their success. Generally customers go to textile shops for buying garments. At that time quality of garments and salespersons performance is very much important factor to determine customer satisfaction.
According to the study of 'The importance of customer satisfaction in retention to customer loyalty and retention' by Singh (2006)  Moreover, the findings of Day (1994) in his study of the 'capabilities of market-driven organizations' concludes that consumer satisfaction leads to higher level of consumer retention while the study of customer satisfaction as an antecedent of price acceptance by Huber et. al.,(2001) asserts that customer satisfaction is associated with willingness of customers to pay higher prices. In the above stated literature, various factors impact on the interaction between salesperson and customer satisfaction. The study of Evanschitzky et al.,(2012)

Conceptual Framework
Concepts or Constructs are ideas that represent the phenomenon.
The conceptual framework consists of concepts that are placed within a logical and sequential design. By considering about the literature review, researchers developed the conceptual framework. The study concerns about the concepts of salespersons' interaction and customer satisfaction. The researchers used three dimensions (communication skills, empathy and trust) under the salespersons' interaction as independent variable and the customer satisfaction is considered as the dependent variable. The conceptual framework shows the relationship between those three dimensions and the customer satisfaction. By using the following conceptual model (see Figure1) researchers explained the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

Sampling Plan
Sampling is a process of selecting a subset of randomized number of members of the population of a study and collecting the data. In this study, researchers' selected 10 popular textile shops in Kiribathgoda area on the basis of purposive sampling to increase the validity and the area is the home town of one of the authors.

Data Collection Methods
The research study focused on primary data. Researchers developed a questionnaire for data collection by including the five point Likert scale questions to measure the three dimensions (communication skills, trust and empathy) under the salespersons' interaction and the customer satisfaction of the textile shops. As per the information given by the owners of the textile shops, the total number of customers per day in all 10 shops is 285 excluding the festival season. (25-40 customers per day in each shop) Researchers selected 100 as the sample size and the questionnaires were distributed and collected among 10 customers of each of the 10 textile shops based on the simple random sampling method.

Data Analysis Methods
Researchers used the SPSS Version (20.0) package to analyze the data which were received from the survey study. The researchers used the frequency tables to show the respondents profile. By using descriptive statistics, researchers considered the mean values of independent variables and identified the importance of those variables for dependent variable. However, this analysis is excluded in this paper. Researchers used the quantitative analysis techniques to analyze the data.

Correlation Analysis
Pearson correlation coefficient (r) is used to determine the strength and direction of the two continuous variables. By using this correlation analysis, researchers identified the relationship between the independent variables (communication skills, trust and empathy) and the dependent variable (customer satisfaction) in the study and tested the hypotheses.

Regression Analysis
Regression analysis is used for identifying the impact of independent variables on dependent variables. Under this analysis, researchers used the Beta value and significant value to identify the impact of salespersons' interaction on customer satisfaction.

Correlation Analysis
Correlation analysis is a statistical analysis that defines the variation in one variable by the variation in another, without establishing a cause-and-effect relationship. The coefficient of correlation is a measure of the strength of the relationship between the variables; that is, how well changes in one variable can be predicted by changes in another variable. In this study, researchers used Pearson Correlation coefficient (r) to determine the strength and direction of the two continuous variables. Pearson Correlation coefficient (r) can take values from -1 to +1 and size of the value of the coefficient indicates the strength of the relationship and sign (-or +) indicates the direction. If the correlation coefficient is 0, there is no relationship between the variables. The Table 1 shows the  correlation  between  the  Salespersons'  interaction  dimensions and customer satisfaction.  tailed) .000 N 100 are 0.000 for communication skills and trust and 0.016 for empathy. All these values are less than 0.05. Therefore, researchers can prove that there is a significant relationship between the salespersons' interaction on customer satisfaction in Textile shops in Kiribathgoda area.
By seeing the Pearson correlation values, researchers can infer the relationship between the three dimensions of salespersons' interaction and customer satisfaction. There is a positive correlation between communication skills and customer satisfaction (0.583); a positive correlation between empathy and customer satisfaction (0.241) and finally a positive correlation between trust and customer satisfaction (0.632). From the analysis, researchers found the communication skills, empathy and trust dimensions of salespersons' interaction have positive relationship with customer satisfaction.

Regression Analysis
In regression analysis, researchers first checked the fitness of good of the research model by using following model summary in Table 2. Since the adjusted R 2 is more than 0.5, the fitness of the model is confirmed.
The above table shows that the adjusted R 2 value is 0.614. That means 61.4% salespersons' interaction affected on customer satisfaction. It indicates that salespersons' interaction has higher impact on customer satisfaction than the other factors. The other factors such as physical aspects of shop, policies of the shop, consumer expectations etc. have only 38.6% of impact on customer satisfaction which supports the findings of previous literature (Gocek & Beceren, 2012).

DISCUSSION
Based on the results the hypotheses H 1 , H 1a , H 1b and H 1c are supported to the salespersons' interaction and customer satisfaction.
Summary of hypotheses testing is illustrated in Table 4. satisfaction. Moreover, this study shows the salespersons' interaction highly supported to customer satisfaction.
The salespersons of the textile shops should consider about the better relationship with the customers in every time because it highly support to customer satisfaction. If the customers cannot get fulfillment of their expectations from the Textile shops, they will not visit to that textile shop for purchases again and again. Since salespersons are one of the factors for attracting customers, they must pay attention on their qualities and how to interact with customers.
Those three factors highly supported salespersons to build their interaction with customers and satisfy them. Finally, from this study researchers can derive to the conclusion that these three dimensions of salespersons' interaction leads to the customer satisfaction.
Therefore, researchers can conclude that there is an impact of salespersons' interaction on customer satisfaction in Textile shops in Kiribathgoda area. Basically salespersons have the ability to speak their native language correctly. Using mother tongue is one of the common and basic factors to create successful relationship. In Kiribathgoda area, most of the customers are speaking Sinhala. Salespersons are also fluent in Sinhala. It is an advantage for the Textile shops. Those Textile shops' salespersons have the ability to communicate with their customers correctly. In Kiribathgoda area textile shops, customers can understand the speaking way of the salespersons at once. This is the key point to the success of the shops. Salespersons body language and what they speak are similar. In case of shops in Kiribathgoda area, there is no difficulty for customers to understand the communication of salespersons.

Recommendations
Last dimension is empathy. This factor has low impact than other two factors. In the textile shop within Kiribathgoda area have huge customer base for the textile shops. Therefore, salespersons want to serve a large amount of customers. Due to this reason, salespersons could not pay attention for each and every customer. That is one of the weaknesses for the growth of the shop. Since there is a wide span of customer base, salespersons fail to understand customers' specific needs and wants. So they are unable to fulfill their needs. However, the opening hours are convenient to all customers. The customers of those textile shops always busy with their works. Hence, they expect and willing to shop at their free time. These shops are open until mid night. Therefore, customers can purchase garments after finishing their works. Salesperson is unable to be a guide to the customers all the time since they ought to deal with a pool of customers in the shops. Further, salespersons are unable to understand customers' personal interest and attitude regularly.
Therefore, researchers recommend that salespersons should increase their other qualities like friendliness, expertise and confidence to get the higher customer satisfaction.

Directions for Future Research
Future researches can be extended to identify further factors except these three dimensions through an in-depth study and can do studies to identify the importance of those dimensions for salespersons' interaction in Textile shops by considering the large sample. For that, they can get the sample from all provinces in Sri Lanka or multiple areas in Sri Lanka. Future researchers can consider about cultural factors or demographic factors as moderate variables other than the salespersons' interaction dimensions which have impacted on customer satisfaction in textile shops. Moreover, this study was conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic situation in the country. Similar studies could be extended to understand the situation during the pandemic and post-pandemic period in Sri Lanka.