Contributors
Articles by Bickart, Barbara
Bickart, Barbara; Morrin, Maureen; Ratneshwar, S. (Ratti)
Customers can pose challenging questions, for which salespeople (despite their best intentions) may not know the answer. We define obfuscation as a providing a response that dodges the actual question and provides a pseudo-answer with irrelevant, tangential or vague information. Obfuscation could buy the salesperson some time, and could potentially limit damage to perceptions of expertise and credibility.