An Exploratory Analysis of the Impact of Salesperson Customer-Orientation on Sales Force Productivity

Abstract

Consumer sovereignty is a concept that is well-established in the marketing literature. It is widely assumed the customer satisfaction is a crucial variable in determining the long-run prosperity of a business. Since the sales force often has the most contact with the customer, it seems logical that their efforts toward satisfying the client would be imperative. The selling orientation-customer orientation (SOCO) scale developed by Saxe and Weitz (1982) was used to determine the customer-orientation of 180 real estate sales personnel. The results of the research indicate that real estate sales representatives can practice customer-oriented selling without fear of losing sales due to their being too “soft” in their selling methods. In addition, the results indicate that companies wishing to enhance their sales personnel's level of customer-orientation may do so through professionally designed sales training programs.     

Customer and selling orientations of retail salespeople and the sales manager's ability-to-perceive-emotions: A multi-level approach

Drawing from the mental ability framework and information processing theory, two studies embedded within the B2C retail setting investigate the role of the sales manager's ability-to-perceive-emotions in the complex non-linear relationships between salespeople's customer and selling orientations on one side, and its outcomes (sales performance and customer re-purchase intention) on the other. Using multilevel data from salespeople and their managers, Study 1 tests a theoretical model of salesperson orientation and performance, while Study 2 further verifies the results of Study 1 from the customer's perspective. Both studies find strong empirical support for a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped effect of a salesperson's customer orientation on sales performance and customer re-purchase intention. This effect is, however, reversed for the link between selling orientation and performance/re-purchase intention, where results indicate a U-shaped curvilinear relationship. Furthermore, we show that the sales manager's ability to perceive emotions facilitates the effect of salespeople's customer orientation on sales performance.     

Can sales leaders with humility create adaptive retail salespersons?

Although humility in leadership has been recognized as vital in leading salespeople to cope with unpredictability and unknowability in customers, the role of sales leader humility in promoting sales behaviors has remained underexplored. Our research aims to unfold how and when sales managers’ leadership humility nurtures retail salespersons’ adaptive selling behavior. Grounded on the dataset from managers and employees working in retail shops of a large telecommunication and computer company in Vietnam, the results reveal the role of retail salespersons’ customer knowledge, adaptive self-efficacy, and customer-oriented harmonious passion as the mediation paths for the linkage between sales leader humility and retail salespeople's adaptive selling behavior. The findings further provide evidence for the role of sales managers’ adaptive selling as an enhancer for the impacts of sales leader humility on these mediators.     

How does the learning climate affect customer satisfaction?

This study investigates the role of the learning climate in the effective management of salespersons' behaviour in service encounters. This paper reports the development and testing of a two-level model in which salespersons' perceptions of the learning climate are related to their adaptive selling behaviour and their adaptive selling behaviour is, in turn, related to customers' evaluation of the salespersons' knowledge of customers and customer satisfaction. A total of 417 service encounters involving 88 bank consultants were analysed using hierarchical linear modelling, with results that support most of the proposed model. More specifically, learning climate was positively related to adaptive selling behaviour, and adaptive selling behaviour was directly related to customer satisfaction. In addition, adaptive selling behaviour was associated with customer satisfaction through customers' perception of the salesperson's knowledge. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

One-to-One and One-to-Many Business Relationship Marketing: Toward a Theoretical Framework

ABSTRACT

Purpose. This work addresses mixed findings in relationship marketing literature regarding the importance of micro-level (interpersonal) relationships on firm outcome.

Methodology/Approach: The article leverages impression formation theory to advance a framework to understand one-to-one and one-to-many marketing relationships to better predict firm outcome.

Findings: The authors suggest that 5 framework moderators—the type and consistency of the encounters, relationship age, purchase frequency, relationship interruptions, and two customer side characteristics (i.e., need to evaluate [NTE] and need for cognitive closure [NFCC]”)—can qualify the relationship building process and impact the effectiveness of interpersonal and/or group relationships on firm outcome.

Practical Implications: The framework suggests that (1) highly consistent sales team behaviors reduce the risk of losing business in case of a sales team member leaving; (2) low frequency purchases are better suited for one-to-many selling relationships; (3) temporarily suspending relationships by individual salespeople is more harmful than suspending relationships by sales teams; (4) involving the customer in the acquisition process facilitates team selling; and (5) a positive first impression is more important for high (vs. low) NFCC and high NTE customers.

Originality/Value. The theoretical framework (1) distinguishes between individual-to-individual and individual-to-group relationships, (2) suggests a distinction between micro-level individual-to-individual and individual-to-group relationships and macro-level individual-to-firm relationships, (3) analyzes the impact of micro-level relationships under the influence of context-related and customer-related factors, and (4) provides managerially relevant guidelines for strategic sales planning.     

Drown or Blossom? The Impact of Perceived Chronic Time Pressure on Retail Salespeople's Performance and Customer–Salesperson Relationships

For retail salespeople chronic time pressure, a perpetual perception of being rushed for time, is a prevalent and pervasive phenomenon in their daily sales jobs. Despite this practical relevance, consequences of perceived chronic time pressure on retail salespeople's selling behaviors, such as adaptive selling, and selling performance are not well understood. Thus, the authors investigate the effect of retail salespeople's perceived chronic time pressure in interactions with customers and its impact on retail salespeople's adaptive selling behavior, customers’ purchase outcomes, as well as salespeople's overall objective performance. Analysis of dyadic data from 291 salesperson–customer interactions from a large B2C furniture retailer revealed an inverse U-shaped curve for the relationship between retail salespeople's perceived chronic time pressure and their adaptive selling behavior. The chronic time pressure–selling outcome relationship strongly depends on the contingencies of retail salespeople's goal orientations and perceived organizational support and has implications for retail research and practice.     

A personal construct analysis of adaptive selling and sales experience

Customer orientation is a key to successful marketing strategies. In personal selling, customer orientation has been shown to be related to the quality of the customer-salesperson relationship (Saxe & Weitz, 1978). Adaptive selling (Weitz, Sujan, & Sujan, 1986) is a theoretical perspective that suggests sales performance is related to salespeople's ability to shift their customer orientation, by adapting their behavior to different customers in different situations. This article presents personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955) as a framework for understanding how sales personnel perceive and adapt to customers. An interview technique known as laddering (Gutman, 1982; Hinkle, 1965) is used to elicit these constructs from sales personnel. Results of the interviews are compared across levels of sales experience. Consistent with the Sujan, Sujan, and Bettman (1988) findings relating sales effectiveness and breadth of knowledge structures, we find that the number of years of sales experience is related to the breadth of constructs obtained from the laddering interviews. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Customer Retention Strategies of Fast-Food Outlets in South Africa: A Focus on Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Nando's,and Steers

The primary aim of the research was to critically analyze and evaluate the different customer retention strategies being implemented by fast-food outlets such as Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Nando's, and Steers in South Africa. The fast-food industry in South Africa is experiencing numerous market-related changes, which range from intense globalization forces to heightening competition levels. The pressure on businesses today is further increased by a market where the customer acquisition rate is slowing, customer loyalty is decreasing, and sales cycles are lengthening. In such an environment, losing a valuable customer to a competitor can have a significant impact on profitability and growth. As a result, many companies have shifted their focus from customer acquisition to customer retention. The research was primarily concerned with assessing customer relationship management, relationship marketing, and communication through technology as strategies to maintain intimate relationships with customers. Personal interviews and in-depth interviews with the help of questionnaires were used to collect primary data in the research. The results indicated that KFC, Nando's, and Steers adopt similar marketing strategies or use the same concepts to manage their relationships with both internal and external customers and other stakeholders. These strategies and concepts include customer relationship management, relationship marketing, and technological means of communication.     

Revisiting the Purpose of Selling: Toward a Model of Responsible Selling

Selling as a profession and sales management as an organizational function have undergone major changes that were driven by the evolutionary journey of the marketing discipline. The extant value cocreation paradigm is recrafting the purpose of selling. This paper explores the conceptual development of a selling paradigm that is more responsible to its customers. Specifically, in Business-to-Business (B2B) context, the cost of any selling behavior that compromises customer interest could be of disastrous proportions. Building on the theoretical foundations of self-regulation and job demands-resources theory, this paper develops a conceptual model of responsible selling by integrating self-leadership literature with the emerging paradigm of value-based selling. The conceptual model outlines several research propositions for empirical validation and discusses its potential implications for sales managers and sales organizations.     

The Influence of the Compensation System and Personal Variables on a Salesperson's Effective Listening Behaviour

Effective listening is crucial for salespeople to succeed in today's personal selling environment, yet poor listening is still one of the most important factors contributing to a salesperson's failure. Despite its importance, very little research has focused on effective listening in this context. This study proposes a model that explains the effective listening behaviour of salespeople in terms of their method of compensation, ability to use customer knowledge, intrinsic motivation, gender, education and experience. The findings suggest that the above factors, with the exception of experience, are significant determinants of effective listening in the sales environment. A discussion of theoretical and managerial implications is presented, and key areas for future research are suggested.     

Acquiring customers through online marketplaces? The effect of marketplace sales on sales in a retailer's own channels

Online retailers are increasingly using third-party online marketplaces (e.g., Amazon, Taobao) as an alternative sales channel to their website. While cross-channel sales elasticities have been established for many sales channel combinations (e.g., adding bricks to clicks), we lack an understanding of whether the use of third-party marketplaces grows or cannibalizes a retailer's sales. Practitioners argue that firms can build their e-commerce business through acquiring customers by selling on the marketplace. Indeed, a marketplace could complement a retailer's offering (e.g., acquiring new customer segments), although inventory effects might mitigate this complementarity. Alternatively, cannibalization might occur from losing customers from one's website to the online marketplace. The present research investigates which of the two opposing forces prevails using a time series of category sales data from one of the largest global marketplace sellers. The authors use vector autoregressive modeling to show that marketplace sales increase sales on a retailer's website (0.014% for every 1% in marketplace sales). This effect is strongest for categories with large choice and low product prices. Acquiring customers through the marketplace might be cheaper than through other sources (estimated at 24% of initial sales). However, online retailers should be aware that this strategy strengthens the marketplace and may have potential negative long-term consequences (e.g., through marketplace control of the customer relationship).     

Does managing customer accounts receivable impact customer relationships,and sales performance? An empirical investigation

The impact of accounts receivables on the performance of salespersons is largely ignored in sales literature. However, in many sales contexts, managing customers' accounts receivables is directly managed by the salespeople, and therefore substantially impacts their sales performance. Towards such sales contexts, in this empirical study, we study the effect of customer account receivables and salespersons' customer orientation on their relationship orientation and customer-related performance. We further analyse the direct impact of relationship orientation on customer-related performance. Using survey-based data from 224 salespersons based out of India, we empirically test the proposed model using partial least squares structural equation modelling. Our findings suggest that accounts receivables from customers and salespersons ‘customer orientation strongly impact relationship building and also improves customer-related performance. The salespersons’ relationship orientation also partially mediates the relationship between customer account receivables and customer-related performance. Therefore, this study provides much-required evidence to establish the salience of salesforce appropriately managing customers' account receivables so that its impact on their sales performance customer relationships are not adversely affected.     

Values,the key to business in 1990 and beyond∗

This article is concerned with the changes which have affected the personal selling function in industrial markets in recent years. It reviews research findings from the UK, Europe and America, and discusses the implications for sales force management and sales training. It concludes that industrial marketing must focus upon key account relationship management, rather than the manipulation of the four Ps in order to create competitive advantage, and that radical new approaches are needed in sales training which reflect the changing nature of the sales person's role, and which may be demonstrated to have a positive affect on selling effectiveness.     

The impact of mood on customer behavior: Staff mood and environmental factors

This review looks at the effect of staff/server mood on customer/client mood and various outcome behaviours such as such as product and service evaluation. It also looks at the role of other stimulus factors such as scent, sound and light on customer affect and cognitions and thence the effects on purchase behaviours. Based on the service-profit chain model, this review considers the scattered research which empirically demonstrates the impact of staff mood upon customer mood and behaviour. The review then goes on to discuss the various ways in which a customer's mood influences their buying behaviour, as well as considering why and when this occurs. Other physical factors that influence customer mood are also considered. Implications for the management of sales staff and sales environments are considered.     

Do Mystery Shoppers Really Predict Customer Satisfaction and Sales Performance?

Mystery shopping (MS) is a widely used tool to monitor the quality of service and personal selling. In consultative retail settings, assessments of mystery shoppers are supposed to capture the most relevant aspects of salespeople’s service and sales behavior. Given the important conclusions drawn by managers from MS results, the standard assumption seems to be that assessments of mystery shoppers are strongly related to customer satisfaction and sales performance. However, surprisingly scant empirical evidence supports this assumption. We test the relationship between MS assessments and customer evaluations and sales performance with large-scale data from three service retail chains. Surprisingly, we do not find a substantial correlation. The results show that mystery shoppers are not good proxies for real customers. While MS assessments are not related to sales, our findings confirm the established correlation between customer satisfaction measurements and sales results.     

The RESER survey of service literature, 1996–2001: new information and communication technologies and services. A synthesis from eight national reports

Salespeople, although the emissaries of the firm's marketing message, find themselves caught amidst new developments in the market place without the necessary guidelines for facing the new challenges presented to them. The separate development of the fields of Sales Management and Relationship Marketing has left unexplored the transition of salespeople from the 'close the sale' imperative to 'build long-term customer relationships'. Our study explores the selling job in the relational sales context of the services sector and highlights a number of key issues for the development of the theory and practice of relationship orientated sales management.     

Bringing meaning to the sales job: The effect of ethical climate and customer demandingness

Top performing salespeople are attracted to organizations that provide opportunities to make full use of their abilities. Responses from 1450 sales directors from a leading direct selling organization were used to examine salesperson's experienced meaningfulness. Results show that experienced meaningfulness is critical to sales because it impacts salesperson's performance, turnover intentions and felt stress. Further, ethical climate and customer demandingness influence experienced meaningfulness perceptions.     

Fostering creative selling through ethics. An emotion-based approach

Research on salesperson creativity remains as one of the most under-researched topics in the sales literature despite the evidence that encouraging creativity in the sales domain is a source of competitive advantage. This paper aims to fill this research gap by exploring the influence of perceived ethical climate on salesperson creative performance, paying special attention to the role that emotions play in this process. Data provided by 176 supervisor–salesperson dyads confirm that the trust/responsibility dimension of an ethical climate is positively related to salesperson creative selling by increasing salespeople's organizational pride. Similarly, the perception of unethical selling practices negatively affects salesperson organizational pride, reducing the expression of creative behaviors. Moreover, the negative effect of unethical selling practices on creative performance is stronger (more negative) when salespeople's identification with an organization increases. Managerial implications and future research directions are also addressed.     

Under the sway of a mobile device during an in‐store shopping experience

Mobile device technology is transforming the retail shopping experience. Today's consumers are mobile dependent, preferring to consult with their phone, instead of using the salesperson, while shopping at the retail store. In the absence of literature investigating how the salesperson might sell to this omni‐channel, mobile‐connected consumer, this paper proposes a conceptual model and tests its proposed linkages. The empirically tested model presents a dyadic view of the omni‐channel consumer and the salesperson. Uniquely contributing to the omni‐channel and marketing literature, samples from an emerging economy (India) and developed (United States) economy represent the contexts. Specifically, the research examines the salesperson's role in selling to a mobile‐dependent consumer who uses mobile technology to search for information during the sales meeting. Findings show that adaptive selling can affect purchase intention and customer predisposition to comply with salesperson input. Results also reveal how perceived control, mobile dependence, and customer predisposition to comply with mobile device input affect purchase intention. Managerial and research implications specifically appropriate for the omni‐consumer retail setting are offered.     

The Transition from Product to Solution Selling: The Role and Organization of Employees Engaged in Current Business

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This research investigates how to manage and organize existing employees when launching a solution sales strategy, specifically addressing whether it is possible to migrate existing sales representatives active in product sales to solution sales, and whether it is possible to combine the roles.

Methodology/approach: A case-based approach was applied to a multinational firm, engaged in business-to-business sales that simultaneously launched a solution sales strategy in 17 countries. In-depth interviews with 29 managers and sales representatives were performed to inductively identify why some countries succeeded in the launch, while others did not.

Findings: Because of fundamental differences in approach between solution and product sales, those countries where the solutions and product businesses were separated performed better. The difference in required capabilities and mindset meant that migrating sales representatives from product to solution sales is problematic.

Research implications: This research offers evidence of differences in mindset and approach between different marketing and sales strategies, extending the conclusions to how these differences affect the possibility of migrating existing sales representatives when launching a new selling strategy. Whether to separate service and product sales has been debated. The present results indicate that separating the current product business from the new solution business facilitates the successful implementation of the new strategy. In the case company, the solutions represent a mixture of product and services, suggesting that the problem is not the difference between products and services, but rather different selling strategies and approaches that require different capabilities.

Practical implications: When launching a solution sales strategy, the solution business should be separated from the current product business at both the organizational and personnel levels. Solution sales necessitates a particular approach and capabilities, making it unadvisable to transfer sales representatives and managers to the new solution business based solely on previous product sales success. Instead, a new skill profile must be developed taking account of the requirements of a demand-driven solution strategy.

Originality/value/contribution: Consensus is lacking as to whether to separate product and service businesses. This article extends the debate to the field of solution

sales, demonstrating that separation is needed to succeed in launching a solution sales strategy. Furthermore, this research extends our knowledge of the difference in approaches between different selling strategies, covering the possibility of successfully migrating existing sales representatives to a different selling strategy.