IMPACT OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS ON RELATIONAL OUTCOMES IN BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES (Pages 01-13) by Dr. Mala Srivastava* and Mr. Mahesh Luthia** in THE INTERNATIONAL MANAGER / ISSN: 2348-9413 (Online); 2348-9405 (Print)

Personal selling is considered one of the most effective mechanism of marketing communication and sales people play an important role in the process. In the context of services, communication is central and supports building strong customer relationships. With increasing emphasis on consultative selling, sale people are required to possess effective communication skills to achieve their performance objectives. When selling involve products which are complex and require matching product and customer needs, consultative selling helps in developing and maintain customer relationships. This technique of consultative selling involves greater communication as a consultant to understand customer needs. Based on review of literature and structured exploratory interviews with experts of the industry this research attempts to present the multi-dimensional conceptualization communication skills and measures of assessing relational outcome. The study examines perception of sales people on the impact of communication skills in selling of financial services on relational outcomes. The results identified specific elements of business communication which facilitate building strong customer relationship through responses sought from frontline sales people in the Indian Banking and Financial Service Institutions. The hypothesis is tested based on data collected from the respondents and the findings empirically establish the positive effect of communication skills on relational outcomes. The academic and managerial implications are discussed. Keywords: Communication Skills, Business Communication, Relational Outcomes