Customer-salespeople relationship

Abstract

Purpose – Based on customer value-based and social exchange theories, the purpose of this paper is to hypothesize and examine the relationships between salespeople entrepreneurial behaviors (innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking) and customer trust in, satisfaction with and commitment to the salespeople. Design/methodology/approach – The influences of salespeople’s entrepreneurial behaviors on customer trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to salespeople were examined utilizing a structural equations model with a sample drawn from the newspaper industry. Findings – As predicted salespeople entrepreneurial behaviors (treated as a higher order factor) significantly and positively influence customer trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to the salespeople. Research limitations/implications – This study confirms innovative, proactive, and risk-taking practices are useful in fostering customer trust, satisfaction, and commitment in the domain of personal selling. The key limitations are the small sample size, the use of a single company, and the omission of other potential outcomes. Practical implications – Entrepreneurial behaviors/activities such as, innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking are worthy undertakings for salespeople. Considering these traits in salespeople hiring and/or fostering them in salespeople training should be worth pursuing. Social implications – By improving the quality of exchanges through salespeople’s entrepreneurial behaviors and customer-salespeople relationship quality, social exchanges, and in turn social welfare are promoted. Originality/value – As per the literature search, this is the first study linking salespeople’s entrepreneurial behaviors and customer-salespeople relationship quality represented by trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to salespeople drawing insights from customer value-based and social exchange theories.

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

“…Noteworthy entrepreneur characteristics are determination and perseverance, a drive to achieve, opportunity oriented, creativity and innovation, tolerance for ambiguity, calculated risk taking, high energy level, vision, passion, and internal locus of control [25]. This study based on previous research by Amyx, Bhuian, & Shows [9] reveals that innovativeness, pro-activeness, and risk taking reflect salespeople's entrepreneurial behavior.…”

“…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].…”

“…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]. As frontline, they also provide service, achieve sales target, establish and maintain long-term relationship with costumers [11], provide reliable and efficient, product knowledge, are proactive, are capable of identifying opportunities and close sales, risk taking, flexible to uncertainty, and take initiative to identify problems and find the solutions [12].…”

“…The relationship between a customer and salespeople might become an important factor influencing customer buying decision, but only a few studies have evaluated this relationship [24]. The potential role of salespeople's entrepreneurial behavior has been overlooked [9]. commitment to the salespeople and customer loyalty to the banking industry.…”

“…It confirms that entrepreneurial behavior helps a firm to maintain a long-term relationship with a customer through customer satisfaction, trust, commitment, and loyalty. This study is important because it helps a firm to develop entrepreneurial behavior such as innovativeness, pro-activeness, and risk-taking ability [9] of customer service to achieve customer satisfaction, trust, commitment, and loyalty.…”