Title

An exploratory analysis of the impact of salesperson customer-orientation on sales force productivity

Abstract

Consumer sovereignty is a concept that is well-established in the marketing literature. It is widely assumed the customer satisfaction is a crucial variable in determining the long-run prosperity of a business. Since the sales force often has the most contact with the customer, it seems logical that their efforts toward satisfying the client would be imperative. The selling orientation-customer orientation (SOCO) scale developed by Saxe and Weitz (1982) was used to determine the customer-orientation of 180 real estate sales personnel. The results of the research indicate that real estate sales representatives can practice customer-oriented selling without fear of losing sales due to their being too “soft” in their selling methods. In addition, the results indicate that companies wishing to enhance their sales personnel's level of customer-orientation may do so through professionally designed sales training programs. © 1997 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All righls reserved.

Department(s)

Marketing

Document Type

Article

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1300/J127v03n04_02

Publication Date

3-28-1997

Journal Title

Journal of Customer Service in Marketing and Management

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS