Executive summary of “Does the hierarchical position of the buyer make a difference? The influence of perceived adaptive selling on customer satisfaction and loyalty in a business-to-business context”

Citation

(2014), "Executive summary of “Does the hierarchical position of the buyer make a difference? The influence of perceived adaptive selling on customer satisfaction and loyalty in a business-to-business context”", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-04-2014-0080

Executive summary of “Does the hierarchical position of the buyer make a difference? The influence of perceived adaptive selling on customer satisfaction and loyalty in a business-to-business context”

Article Type: Executive summary and implications for managers and executives From: Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Volume 29, Issue 5

This summary has been provided to allow managers and executives a rapid appreciation of the content of the article. Those with a particular interest in the topic covered may then read the article in toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of the research undertaken and its results to get the full benefit of the material present.

Given the significant costs of the industrial salesforce (the average cost of making a personal sales call in the USA is said to range from $250 to S500), industrial sales managers would like to have some evidence that adaptive selling not only leads to short-term sales and satisfaction but also to building and maintaining relationships with customers through loyalty to the selling company.

Salespeople exhibit a high level of adaptive selling behavior when they use different sales presentations across sales encounters and when they make adjustments during the encounter based on real-time feedback and perceived information about the nature of the selling situation. Adaptive selling includes shaping the content and amount of information shared with different customers who have different needs (a repeat customer does not need the background information required by a new purchaser). Salespeople also adapt their selling tactics to the buyer’s communication style. All this implies that the successful adaptation of a sales approach can be a difficult task that requires extra effort. Not only must the salesperson gather and analyze information from the customer, but he or she must then implement appropriate behaviors to match the characteristics of the sales situation.

In “Does the hierarchical position of the buyer make a difference? The influence of perceived adaptive selling on customer satisfaction and loyalty in a business-to-business context”, Dr Sergio Román and Dr Pedro Juan Martín analyze the influence of adaptive selling, as perceived by customers, on customer satisfaction – both with the salesperson and the company – and loyalty to the company in a business-to-business context.

Buyers’ expectations regarding salespersons’ behaviors may vary across functional areas. For example, previous research found that purchasing personnel and corporate management used different criteria to evaluate suppliers. Interestingly, other research suggests that the buyer’s level of authority within their firm has a direct influence over their expectations and evaluations of salespeople. Consequently, a second objective of the present study is to analyze to what extent the organizational position occupied by the buyer (general manager or purchasing manager) moderates the results obtained (i.e. satisfaction and loyalty) as a consequence of a salesperson’s adaptive selling behavior.

In an investigation involving organizational buyers from a wide variety of industries, it was found that adaptive selling significantly increased customer satisfaction in a business-to-business context and that adaptive selling is particularly relevant in contexts such as services selling and industrial markets where the salesperson is the primary – if not sole – contact point for the customer both before and after the purchase.

It also seems that at higher levels of buying authority, buyers consider more issues and criteria than just product attributes and prices. Buyers at higher levels of authority are more responsive to adaptive selling practices. In particular, general managers, as opposed to purchasing managers, seem to be more aware of the effort of adapting the sales strategy to the selling situation, and more willing to reward such effort in terms of commitment to continue the relationship, for example.

Interestingly, the analysis of the moderating role of the hierarchical position occupied by the buying person also revealed that adaptive selling did not have a direct influence on loyalty when the contact person is the purchasing manager instead of the general manager.

Adaptive selling is hard work and takes time. Therefore sales managers should not reward salespeople on a 100 per cent commission based on the sales made. This is not to imply that companies should avoid incentive programs, rather they could use a combination of base salary plus incentive pay in the form of commissions, bonuses or both based not only on the sales performance but also on how well long-term objectives such as customer satisfaction have been achieved. The authors also suggest that sales managers should take time to communicate with their salespeople, assisting and guiding them to effectively adapt their sales strategy, and include adaptive selling as a criterion in the performance evaluation process.

Sales managers should maximize the time their salespeople spend calling on customers. This can be done by providing salespeople with company support to carry out the office work. The salesperson may then become the leader of a team in order to better serve customer needs through adaptive selling.

Bearing in mind the research findings about differences in responsiveness of general, as opposed to purchasing, managers, traditional face-to-face communications are encouraged when selling to buyers with higher levels of authority. This channel of communication allows the salesperson to be in a better position to adapt the information and the communication style to the customer. Importantly, salespeople will have to spend even more time researching the company, client and situation before the face-to-face interaction takes place. Information gathering must be done thoughtfully not to “waste” the customer’s time and focus the presentation on how the selling offer satisfies the customer’s needs and provides superior value.

(A précis of the article “Does the hierarchical position of the buyer make a difference? The influence of perceived adaptive selling on customer satisfaction and loyalty in a business-to-business context”. Supplied by Marketing Consultants for Emerald.)