Recently, Customers persue more reasonable and wise consumption by more information about their products and services through a variety of media. Customers' expectations and product knowledge have increased, the range of choices for customers has been expanding, and the way of purchasing has also varied online. However, in the case of high-priced and high-importance products, offline purchases are being made, and companies are conducting various marketing activities to increase customer share. In this competitive environment, securing and maintaining customers is more important. In order to strengthen them, it is necessary to clearly understand and apply the attributes of salespersons who directly form relationships with customers.
Especially, in the case of automobiles, which take into account functional aspects and symbolic value aspects, the emotions and preferences of the brand will affect the customer's decision to purchase.
Understanding the effects of salesperson attributes on brand image can be seen as an important task for products such as automobiles.
In this study, the characteristics of the business including the customer orientation and the sales orientation were reflected, and the effects of the attributes of the salesperson on trust, brand image and behavioral intention were examined.
As a result, ethics of salesperson is the most important attribute, and it seems to be related with the social atmosphere which is increasing recently interested in corporate ethics and social responsibility. Ethical conflicts among salespeople may cause unethical behavior, and unethical behaviors may cause disadvantages for individuals, corporations, and customers. Therefore, it is necessary for organizations to provide ethical guidelines to resolve ethical conflicts.
There are differences in the effect on trust, brand image and behavioral intention according to sub - factors of salesperson attributes. For example, customer orientation of salespeople did not significantly effect customer trust in salespeople, but there was a significant effect on brand image and behavioral intention. This result shows that a specific management plan for the salesperson attribute is needed and it is necessary to change the recognition about the salesperson's attribute. Also, the study result is to suggest that salesperson 's attributes should be managed not only in individual competence dimension to achieve performance but also in brand image dimension.