Will This Salesperson Push Customers Into the Wrong Product?

Candidate Assessment
Written by Ashley Wesley

You can't fully know in an interview whether a salesperson will push customers into the wrong product, but you can get much closer than gut feel. Look for evidence of how they've handled the moment when the customer's interest and their own commission pulled in different directions, check it with references, and remember that your pay plan will shape what they do at least as much as their character.

That last part is the one nobody likes to hear. So let's start there.

Why does mis-selling matter more than it used to?

Here's the fair part first. A rep who pushes hard often hits quota. The customer signs, the commission pays, and the dashboard looks great for a quarter or two. Some pushiness is just energy, and plenty of buyers need a nudge to make a decision they already know is right.

The cost shows up later. The customer who was sold the wrong thing doesn't buy again, doesn't refer anyone, and tells people. And buyers today have more ways than ever to avoid a salesperson they don't trust.

Canada has a well-documented example. In 2018 the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada reviewed retail sales practices at the country's six largest banks. It reviewed more than 4,500 complaints and more than 100,000 pages of bank documents, and interviewed more than 600 bank employees (Financial Consumer Agency of Canada [FCAC], 2018b). Its first finding: "Retail banking culture is predominantly focused on selling products and services" (FCAC, 2018a, Key findings). It also reported that "some employees disclosed feeling pressured to sell or witnessing mis-selling" at other banks or other branches of their own bank (FCAC, 2018a, section 5).

The FCAC's definition of mis-selling is worth borrowing for any sales team: sales "made without taking reasonable account of the consumer's financial goals, needs and circumstances" (FCAC, 2018a). Swap "financial" for "business" and you have the question this post is about.

South of the border it went further. In 2016 the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Wells Fargo $100 million after employees, "spurred by sales targets and compensation incentives," opened more than two million deposit and credit card accounts that may not have been authorized by customers (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB], 2016).

Neither case was about one bad hire. That matters, and we'll come back to it.

What does the research say about customer-focused salespeople?

Researchers have studied this for more than 40 years under the label "customer orientation." Saxe and Weitz (1982) built the best-known measure, the SOCO scale (selling orientation, customer orientation). They found that customer-oriented selling is related to a salesperson's ability to help customers and to "the quality of the customer-salesperson relationship" (Saxe & Weitz, 1982, abstract).

Here's where it gets honest. Does customer orientation make salespeople sell more?

  • A meta-analysis of 16 studies and 3,477 salespeople found a positive but small link between customer orientation and job performance, a correlation of .14 (.16 after correction), and the link held whether performance was self-rated or measured other ways (Jaramillo et al., 2007).
  • A second meta-analysis found that adaptive selling (adjusting your approach to each buyer) raised self-rated, manager-rated and objective performance, "whereas CO increases only self-rated performance" (Franke & Park, 2006, abstract). CO is customer orientation.

The two reviews don't fully agree, but neither shows customer-first salespeople reliably closing more this quarter. We don't think that's the point. The point is trust: the customer who wasn't pushed into the wrong product is the one who takes your rep's call next year. Our view is that trust is the outcome, and selling well follows from it. Just don't hire a customer-focused rep expecting the numbers to jump on their own.

How do incentives change what a good person does?

This is the nuance that keeps owners honest. The FCAC found that bank employees' behaviour toward customers "was influenced more by financial and non-financial incentives than by the communications they receive from senior management" (FCAC, 2018a, section 2). In other words, the pay plan beat the poster on the wall.

Lab research points the same way. Schweitzer et al. (2004) found that "people with unmet goals were more likely to engage in unethical behavior," and the effect was "particularly strong when people fell just short of reaching their goals" (abstract). That was a lab study, not a sales floor, but anyone who has watched the last week of a quarter will recognize it.

So yes, hire carefully. But a candidate with good instincts, dropped into a plan that pays only on signature with a hard cliff at quota, will feel the same pull everyone else does. If you haven't looked at your plan lately, our post on why commission plans backfire is a good place to start.

Do integrity tests help?

They help with some things more than others. An early meta-analysis reported strong validity for integrity tests (Ones et al., 1993). A later update using stricter study criteria found much lower numbers: a corrected validity of .15 for job performance and .32 for counterproductive work behaviour, though much of that came from candidates' own self-reports (.42) rather than others' reports (.11) or records (.15) (Van Iddekinge et al., 2012). The same update found that studies written by test publishers reported roughly double the validity of independent studies (.27 against .12).

Our read: an integrity test can flag risk of rule-breaking. It won't tell you whether someone will quietly upsell a customer into the premium package they don't need. Treat vendor claims with care. And in Ontario, check how a test works before you use it. Many integrity tests are personality-style questionnaires, and the Ontario Human Rights Commission says tests of psychological or personality profiles "should never be administered before a conditional offer of employment, and even then should be approached with caution" (Ontario Human Rights Commission [OHRC], 2008, section IV-6). Confirm your approach with employment counsel.

How to assess customer focus in a sales hire

  1. Ask for the moment of conflict, not the philosophy. "Tell me about a time a customer wanted something that would have paid you more but wasn't right for them. What happened?" Probe for specifics: the product, the amount, what they said, what the customer did next. Customer-first talk is cheap. Stories with details are harder to fake. Our structured interview guide shows how to score answers consistently.
  2. Listen for whether they ever made a sale smaller. Strong candidates can name a deal they shrank, delayed or sent elsewhere because it wasn't right. If every story ends with a bigger order, ask why.
  3. Run a short role play with a built-in trap. Play a buyer whose stated need fits your cheaper product. Watch whether the candidate asks enough to find that out, or heads straight for the top tier. Adaptive selling was the behaviour that predicted results across all three performance measures (Franke & Park, 2006), so look for the questions first.
  4. Ask references the question directly. "Did customers ever complain about being oversold?" and "Would you send this person to your own most important customer?" A pause tells you something. Our post on reference checks for sales hires has more questions that get past the polite answer.
  5. Check how they talk about their old quota. Pressure to hit a number isn't a red flag. Bragging about "whatever it takes" is.
  6. Look at your own plan before the offer. If the plan rewards only the signature, expect the signature. Consider paying part of the variable on retention, renewals or customer feedback, and test the plan against a bad month. Confirm any changes with employment counsel, since the Employment Standards Act limits deductions from wages to specific cases (Government of Ontario, n.d.).
  7. Score customer focus against your best people. What does your most trusted rep do when a customer asks for the wrong thing? Write it down, then judge candidates against that, not against a generic ideal.

Two things that are both true

We'll say the HR part out loud: those of us who build pay plans and sign off on sales targets help create the pressure we later blame on "bad hires." Mis-selling is partly a hiring problem and partly a design problem.

So hire people who will tell a customer "that's not the right one for you." And then build a plan that doesn't punish them for saying it. Here in Guelph and across Ontario, the owners who get both right keep their customers longer than the ones who only fix one.

In short

You can't guarantee a salesperson won't mis-sell, but you can look for real evidence. Ask for specific stories where the customer's interest and the rep's commission pulled apart, run a role play where the right answer is the cheaper product, and ask references about overselling. Research links customer orientation to better customer relationships, but not reliably to higher objective sales (Franke & Park, 2006). Incentives shape behaviour too: Canada's 2018 bank review found staff were influenced more by incentives than by messages from senior leaders (FCAC, 2018a).

Key takeaways

  • Customer orientation has a small positive link to job performance overall, a corrected correlation of .16 across 16 studies (Jaramillo et al., 2007).
  • Customer orientation raised only self-rated performance, while adaptive selling raised self-rated, manager-rated and objective performance (Franke & Park, 2006).
  • The FCAC's 2018 review of Canada's six largest banks found employees were influenced more by incentives than by leadership messaging (FCAC, 2018a).
  • People who fall just short of a goal are especially likely to behave unethically, at least in the lab (Schweitzer et al., 2004).
  • Integrity tests predict counterproductive behaviour (.32 corrected) better than job performance (.15 corrected) (Van Iddekinge et al., 2012).
  • The most useful interview evidence is a specific story of a sale the candidate made smaller or turned down.

Frequently asked questions

What is the SOCO scale?

The SOCO scale measures a salesperson's selling orientation against their customer orientation. It was developed by Saxe and Weitz (1982) and is one of the most widely used research measures of whether a salesperson puts the customer's needs first.

Do customer-focused salespeople sell more?

Not reliably, based on current research. Customer orientation has a small positive link to performance overall (Jaramillo et al., 2007), but one meta-analysis found it raised only self-rated performance, not objective sales (Franke & Park, 2006). Its value is in the relationship and the trust it builds.

Can an interview tell me if a salesperson is honest?

Not on its own. A structured interview that asks for specific past situations, scored the same way for every candidate, plus a role play and direct reference questions, gives you far better evidence than a general conversation about values.

Do commission plans make salespeople unethical?

Incentives don't make people unethical, but they shape behaviour. Canada's 2018 bank review found staff were influenced more by incentives than by messages from senior management (FCAC, 2018a), and the CFPB tied the Wells Fargo accounts to sales targets and compensation incentives (CFPB, 2016).

The Ontario Human Rights Commission says personality and psychological tests should never be given before a conditional offer of employment (OHRC, 2008, section IV-6). Many integrity tests are personality-style, so check how yours works. Use validated, job-related tools, offer accommodation, and don't let one score decide. Confirm your approach with employment counsel. This is general information, not legal advice.

Work with us

Down to your last few candidates? Our Final Candidate Review tests your finalists against your own best people before you make the offer. If it doesn't help, you don't pay.

This post is general information, not legal advice. Confirm employment decisions with employment counsel.

References

Ashley Wesley
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