When do customers perceive customer centricity? The role of a firm’s and salespeople’s customer orientation

Abstract

The concept of customer centricity is frequently debated by sales and marketing researchers and practitioners. However, to date no validated scale exists that measures to what extent customers perceive companies as customer centric. Against this backdrop, drawing on prior literature, qualitative interviews, and a customer survey (N ¼ 246), the authors develop and validate a measurement scale for perceived customer centricity. In addition, using matched survey and financial data from industrial customers (N ¼ 1,089), the authors examine antecedents and consequences of perceived customer centricity. Results show that customers perceive firms as customer centric if the supplier is customer oriented on both the overall firm level and the salesperson level. Furthermore, perceived customer centricity is strongly linked to customers' loyalty intentions and objective sales revenue, particularly if customers perceive a firm to exhibit high prices. Thus, this article equips managers with a validated and easy-to-use measurement that allows monitoring a firm's progress toward customer centricity.

The human side of digital transformation in sales: review & future paths

“…Relatedly, in the stages of the personal selling process which particularly require empathetic skills and adaptive selling (Alavi, Habel, and Linsenmayer 2019), i.e., in the customer interaction and after-sales service, effectiveness of automation through new digital sales technologies may be strongly limited. This finding is in line with recent works indicating that personal attention through salespeople is especially warranted in complex and high-priced contexts (Alavi et al 2021;Habel et al 2020;Lawrence et al 2019;Schmitz et al 2020). Interestingly, this finding is in line with a recent study of the prestigious World Economic Forum on the future of work indicating that in complex business contexts the number of sales and marketing jobs is bound to rise in response to digitalization initiatives (World Economic Forum 2018).…”

Understanding the Impact of Relationship Disruptions

“…Third, a new salesperson needs to devote enhanced effort to obtain in-depth customer knowledge and build customers’ trust after a disruption. This enhanced effort may elevate customers’ perception of the value of the relationship (Habel et al 2019; Ulaga and Eggert 2006) and motivate them to expand the relationship.…”

Salesperson attributes that influence consumer perceptions of sales interactions

“…Through the buyer-seller interaction, salespeople influence the feelings, decision-making process and satisfaction of customers. Customer satisfaction depends on how well the salesperson interaction matches customer expectations; however, as the modern consumer is much more informed and educated consumption-wise than in the past, the expectations and demands from sales interactions are increased (Habel et al, 2020;Rippé et al, 2016). In this context, salespeople's customer orientation becomes essential in maintaining customer loyalty and achieving customer satisfaction both in a retail context (Homburg et al, 2011a(Homburg et al, , 2011bLee and Dubinsky, 2003), as well as in a direct-selling environment (Dobrescu and Radu, 2014).…”

“…"The role of the retail salesperson has shifted and retailers have been left without a clear understanding of how to manage this change in the retailing landscape" (Rapp et al, 2015, p. 358). While existing literature has previously examined salesperson attributes in a business-to-business and B2C context (Itani et al, 2019;Janakiraman et al, 2019), the changing dynamics of this role set forces industry and academia to re-evaluate the various attributes associated with salespeople, how differing attributes can influence customer expectations during this new digitally-oriented buying process and the critical elements of customer orientation for a salesperson that leads not only to close the sale but also to positive digital word-of-mouth (Cuevas, 2018;Habel et al, 2020;Homburg et al, 2011aHomburg et al, , 2011bMarshall et al, 2012). Furthermore, these elements may differ as a function of the context (retail, direct-selling and follow-up) of the salespersonbuyer interaction.…”