Making Sales Technology Effective

Abstract

Making Sales Technology EffectiveFirms invest billions of dollars in sales technologies (STs; e.g., customer relationship management, sales automation tools) to improve sales force effectiveness and efficiency. However, the results expected from ST investments are often not achieved. This article proposes relationship-forging tasks that are critical to the link between ST use and key aspects of salesperson performance (i.e., a salesperson's relationship-building performance with customers and administrative performance). The authors evaluate relationship-forging tasks in the context of a model that considers the antecedents and consequences of three different uses of ST: accessing, analyzing, and communicating information. In general, the results of a field study, which is analyzed using blockrecursive structural equation modeling, support the relationship-forging theory and show that relationship-forging tasks predict 57% of the variance in a salesperson's relationship-building performance with customers. The findings also support hypotheses that using ST either to analyze or to communicate information has mediated positive effects on a salesperson's relationship-building performance with customers. However, a salesperson's use of ST to analyze information has negative influences on administrative performance, creating an unexpected trade-off for sales and marketing managers.

Social influence on salespeople’s adoption of sales technology: a multilevel analysis

“…In a world of overwhelming amounts of data to be accessed, analyzed, and communicated by salespeople, managers widely provide their sales forces with applications of SFA tools (Hunter and Perreault 2007). This is because managers hope that the automation of salespeople enhances their performance.…”

Monitoring the Ethical Use of Sales Technology: An Exploratory Field Investigation

“…These studies have investigated the determinants of intentions, such as perceptions, attitudes, social influences, and facilitating conditions (Speir and Venkatesh, 2002). However, researchers have acknowledged that current theoretical models of ST have not accurately predicted actual use -only intentions (Hunter and Perreault, 2007;Jones et al, 2002;Speir and Venkatesh, 2002).…”

“…The competitive advantage of ST in marketing organizations makes the study of it an important stream of research (Hunter and Perreault, 2007). ST can improve the productivity of sales personnel by enabling them to: instantly type in reports, transmit and review information electronically, track inventory online, gain instant access to product information, improve communication, generate sales leads, and decrease non-selling time.…”

“…(Richard T. DeGeorge 2003) The increasing investment in technology in marketing organizations has been a major area of investigation in terms of productivity, efficiency, and its ability to foster long-term customer relationships (Hunter and Perreault, 2007). In fact, to remain competitive, investing heavily and adopting new technology are critical for marketing success.…”

“…The central tenant of CRM is to develop and nurture ongoing long-term relationships between buyers and sellers by increasing trust and commitment between the two parties (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). For many firms, salespeople and the advanced technological tools they use are the primary source of developing such long-term productive and trustworthy relationships (Hunter and Perreault, 2007). However, the intersection between salespeople and the ethical use of technology remains a relatively underresearched area despite the continued interest in ethics and technology (cf., Winter et al, 2004).…”