Making the Customer Orientation of Salespeople Unsustainable—The Moderating Effect of Emotional Exhaustion

Abstract

Customer orientation of salespeople usually leads to a sustainable positive effect on job performance, yet previous research has usually focused on the benefits of functional customer orientation, and less is known about its relational customer orientation’s outcomes. Based on conservation of resources theory, this research focuses on both types of customer orientation, functional and relational customer orientation, and investigates the moderating effect of emotional exhaustion on the relationship between customer orientation and adaptive selling behavior. We collected 282 valid questionnaires from frontline salespeople in China. Results showed that functional/relational customer orientation was positively correlated with salespeople’s adaptive selling behavior. Salespeople’s emotional exhaustion moderates the main effect: when emotional exhaustion is high, the relationship between functional/relational customer orientation and adaptive selling behavior is substantially weakened. This study contributes to a further understanding of the sustainable operation environment for customer orientation, and provides practical implications regarding the attainment of sustainable outcomes of customer orientation.

The Customer Orientation of Salesperson for Performance in Korean Market Case: A Relationship between Customer Orientation and Adaptive Selling

“…The study on the exploratory constructs of customer orientation distinguishes the variables by individual factors, organizational factors, and system factors. First, personal factors influencing customer orientation include a salesperson's gender, sales experience, and the emotional situation of customers [30,35]. Second, organizational factors, such as the delegation of authority for problem solving or providing an environment for collaboration among colleagues [36], ethical education [37], and creating an environment that stimulates organizational culture and motivation [38].…”

Understanding the role of customer incivility and supervisor monitoring in the relationship between customer orientation and frontline employees' emotional exhaustion

“…Customer orientation continuously creates exceptional value for an organization by conveying the expectations and requirements of the organization to its employees, providing them with a code of conduct and compelling employees to practically apply the organization's policies and strategies (Deshpande and Webster, 1989). Therefore, service organizations have continually advocated the concept of "customer first" sustainable competitiveness is facilitated by developing customer-oriented service behavior among employees (Shu et al, 2019). However, frontline employees should not only focus on customers' current needs of customers but also focus on their future development and build long-term relationships (Schultz and Good, 2000).…”

Can Cognitive Capital Sustain Customer Satisfaction? The Mediating Effects of Employee Self-Efficacy

“…Highly self-efficacious employees are one of the main inimitable resources of differentiation as they support organizations to generate and sustain competitive advantage [184,185]. If self-efficacious service employees demonstrate customer-oriented service, they would not only enhance the level of customer satisfaction but also sustain their satisfaction in long term and encourage reciprocity of information and practices among them [167,[186][187][188]. A high level of employees' self-efficacious increases employees' willingness to serve customers promptly [189].…”