An Honest Discussion About Lies: How Components of a Seller’s Lies Can Impact Customer Relationship Commitment

People lie, and some research suggests that over 90% of people lie at least once a week ([@ref34]). More specifically, sales and marketing professionals are seen as more likely liars (e.g., [@ref15]), leading to ever-greater skepticism on the part of customers. Other than some recent work in marketing regarding marketplace deception ([@ref4]; [@ref35]), little has been done to understand the impact of different kinds of lies on a buyer’s relationship commitment. Applying Bok’s (1999) theories related to lies, this paper investigates how deceit has been viewed in marketing and sales, provides a theoretical model for how the lies of a salesperson might impact a customer’s relationship commitment, and presents a brief study on the impact that lies might have on buyer’s relationship commitment. Results show that even though the truth is always better than a lie, different lies - independent of their direct impact on the buyer - can have varying amounts of impact on relationship commitment.