A new conceptualization of salesperson's customer orientation

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this article is to provide a new conceptualization of a salesperson's customer orientation, as a multi-dimensional construct. The authors aim to base their new conceptualization on extensive evidence from literature review, and synthesis of the review of literature. Design/methodology/approach -An extensive literature review of the extant conceptualizations and operationalizations of salesperson's customer orientation is first carried out. Based on the review and synthesis of literature, a salesperson's customer orientation with six domain areas is conceptualized, through several propositions in the paper. Findings -The findings of this study suggest that salesperson's customer orientation has six domain areas, namely, providing information to customers, understanding customer needs, fulfilling customer needs, creating and delivering customer value, sustaining customer satisfaction, and maintaining long-term relationships with customers. Practical implications -The sales managers can now apply more specifically, any of the six domain areas of customer-oriented selling, and understand the conditions under which a particular domain area is important for customers. Originality/value -Salesperson's customer orientation hitherto has been considered only as an application of the marketing concept. The domain of this construct, or its various sub-domain areas were not clearly delineated so far in the literature. This paper clearly explicates the domain areas of the construct while defining customer-oriented selling in the changed world of selling today.

The Strategy to Improve Salesperson’s Performance by Salesperson’s Technical Competency, Sales Soft Capability, Service Orientation, and Adaptive Selling

“…The result of this research indicates that service orientation has an influence towards the salesperson's performance. This corresponds to a research done by Singh (2012) which stated that service orientation has a positive influence towards performance. Therefore, this fourth hypothesis is accepted.…”

“…A study conducted by Keillor (1999) stated that service orientation has a direct positive influence towards salesperson's performance. Another research was done by Singh et al (2012) also stated that service orientation has a positive influence towards performance. H5: The better the service orientation that is given, the better a salesperson's performance.…”

RELIGIO-CENTRIC SELLING STRATEGY IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARKET SENSING CAPABILITIESAND THE SMEs BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

“…Customer orientation is considered a strategic orientation that reflects the company's ability to create and provide superior customer value through market intelligence processing that involves acquiring customer information; information analysis; knowledge dissemination, and coordination of response throughout the organization (Racela, 2014). In practice, the success of a customer-oriented selling strategy depends on the ownership of salespeople on six domain areas, namely, providing information to customers, understanding customer needs, meeting customer needs, creating and delivering customer value, maintaining customer satisfaction, and maintaining long-term relationships with customers (Singh & Koshy, 2012).…”

Impact of Salespeople's Entrepreneurial Behavior toward Customer Satisfaction, Trust, Commitment, and Loyalty

“…In the last decades, customer orientation has dramatically shifted [1] from goods-dominant to service-dominant logic [2]. In customer oriented company, salespeople help a customer to make a satisfactory buying decision by not only selling the product [1] or chasing sales number [3], but more by establishing a long-term relationship and sustained communication with a costumer [4]. It is not only a shortterm transactional relationship but also a long-term customer relationship [5].…”

“…Following the studies by Amyx, Bhuian, & Shows [9], the present study uses customer service as the subject of research because we believe that salespeople and customer service persons as bank frontline essentially play the same role. Salespeople provide information, understanding, and fulfill customer needs and establish a long-term relationship [1]. They identify customer needs and pro-actively provide the right innovative solution [10], They take the necessary risk to surpass customer expectation [9].…”