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Drawing on the organizational buying decision-making framework, the purpose of this study is to investigate how sales orientation (SOCO) affects buyers’ conflict, salesperson-owned loyalty and buyers’ propensity to end a supply relationship when selling firms use a single versus multiple salesforce go-to-market strategy.

Survey data was analyzed with a sample of organizational buyers. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data.

Findings reveal that a selling firm’s go-to-market salesforce strategy moderates certain relational aspects of the buyer–salesperson relationship, consequently influencing a buyer’s decision to end a supply relationship.

Empirically, these findings indicate that the effects of selling orientation on conflict, salesperson-owned loyalty and exit intentions are not only based on the salesperson’s efforts but are conditional on the selling firm’s go-to-market strategy, particularly with the implementation of multiple salespeople selling to a particular industrial buyer.

These results suggest that a salesforce go-to-market strategy conveys serious consequences on buying decisions. Given that a go-to-market strategy involving multiple salespeople impacts the buyer’s relationship with the selling firm to a greater degree, managerial oversight must remain present when selling firms decide to pursue such a go-to-market strategy.

The empirical investigation of a salesforce go-to-market strategy is an original pursuit. Specifically, this study shows that while it is critical that buying and selling firms monitor buyer–salesperson relationships as the basis for supply partnerships, these exchanges are largely contingent on the selling firm’s go-to-market strategy.

This paper aims to investigate whether this savored relationship goal within business‐to‐business selling will survive through this century's formidable stumbling blocks. The fundamental question may very well be, if not the present sales model(s) then is it time to formulate a new sales models?

The research examines the relevant sales challenge elements and sales beneficial factors as components of a new sales return on investment (ROI) model. This has generated a series of subordinate research objectives, which attempt to rationalize the contribution and weighted value of each of the modeled elements. The use of secondary research reveals a consistent thread of relationship‐selling challenges for sales teams.

Client management and sales are key functions in most organizations, and companies are increasingly realizing the importance of preserving and developing relationships with their existing clients, in addition to developing new clients. The challenge is to manage customers strategically, by constantly expanding the scope of the offering and the strength of the impact on the customer's business performance. Achieving differentiation with strategic customers requires new buyer‐seller relationship strategies that assist customers in implementing their own strategies. The capability to manage strategic customer relationships as the most critical assets in the business remains elusive.

Effective salesperson follow‐up would logically include specific components designed to interact, connect, know, and relate with their customers: interact – the sales person acts to maximize the number of critical encounters; connect – the salesperson maintains contact with the multiple individuals in the buying; know – the salesperson coordinates and interprets the information gathered; relate – the salesperson applies relevant understanding and insight to create value‐added interactions.

The contribution of this paper have been directored towards offering sales and marketing organizations the foundational elements of a grass‐roots ROI modeling technique to apply towards their respective sales endeavors. This author believes that successful implementation of these key factors should enable sales teams and their sale management to achieve their respective institutional sales, client, and growth targets.

This paper adds to the subject knowledge of sales and sales techniques by creating new sales models, which address the twenty‐first century marketing environment challenges.

This study aims to examine the satisfaction-loyalty framework on word-of-mouth communications (WOMC) and share-of-purchases in situations where business-to-business (b-t-b) buyers have a relationship with both the salesperson and the selling firm.

This study uses an online panel to examine respondents with b-t-b purchasing authority for their given firm. Lisrel 8.52 was used to examine the proposed structural model.

This study finds that satisfaction, loyalty and WOMC with regards to the salesperson directly impacts satisfaction, loyalty and WOMC with the selling firm, respectively. Also, the study finds that certain levels of buyer satisfaction and loyalty impact post purchase behavior and spending.

Several contributions emerge from the proposed model to advance relationships within b-t-b markets by examining methods in which salespeople can directly influence their company’s financial outcome in the form of increased customer spending; examining methods for increasing buyers’ WOMC; expanding the current body of knowledge examining the buyer–selling firm relationship as two unique, but related, relationships; and further revealing the dichotomy between consumer markets and b-t-b markets.

This research authenticates the need to examine satisfaction, loyalty and WOMC from a multi-level perspective in b-t-b environments. Further, the understanding of share-of-purchases is advanced.

This paper aims to begin to remedy deficiencies in the understanding of how the increased focus on service, even in manufacturing environments, relates to consumer desire for relationships. The role of relationships in both services and physical goods has taken on a new meaning that should be further explored.

The qualitative study reported in this paper examines the extent to which consumers feel that they are in relationships with companies from a variety of product categories that range from search goods (easy to evaluate in advance of purchase) to credence goods (difficult to evaluate). The analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with 20 customers.

The results identify when consumers place an emphasis on specific relational behaviors in evaluating the product use experience. Specifically, trust, commitment and expertise seemed more important when products were difficult to evaluate in advance, whereas social benefits and special treatment were mentioned with search and credence products more than experience products.

The results are exploratory and should be replicated and extended utilizing a larger, more representative sample before they are generalized to market.

The results have important implications for practitioners in both manufacturing and service industries, as they decide when and how to differentiate their service components and pursue relationships with consumers. Firms need to stand out from a service perspective.

The manuscript develops a more robust understanding of the relational behaviors that matter to customers and provides recommendations about how to best manage them.

This paper aims to develop an omni-channel framework in the context of sales and sales management related to six areas: sales contexts, impact of technology, stages in the sales process, impact on relationships, impact on firm performance and the role of various communication tools and platforms. The paper also offers future reach needs in each of these areas.

Literature review and research needs development.

Research in omni-channel marketing in the context of sales and sales management is virtually silent. The authors identify key research gaps and offer recommended future research opportunities.

To date, little research in sales and sales management has studied multi-channel marketing. The omni-channel research framework reported here is unique and will help guide research in this area.

Vietnamese banks have relied in the past on short‐term promotional techniques and attractive interest rates instead of developing strong brands. This research investigates how customers’ perceptions of bank brands drive their trust and loyalty. It also addresses how customers’ experience and their social compliance moderate the impact of their brand perceptions on their trust and loyalty.

Customers’ perceptions are measured through brand associations based on the bank's functional elements, its personnel and its overall image. A structural equation model linking brand associations to customers’ trust and loyalty is tested using data from a sample of 557 Vietnamese bank customers.

The results indicate that the personnel‐based brand associations are the strongest driver of trust and have a negative direct impact on loyalty, while functional and corporate‐based associations have a stronger impact on loyalty. Trust strongly mediates brand associations’ impact on loyalty. In addition, corporate‐based associations have a stronger impact on trust and loyalty for customers with little direct experience with the bank and personnel‐based associations have a stronger impact for socially compliant customers.

The findings indicate how different brand associations can be leveraged to trigger customers’ trust and loyalty in the Vietnamese banking sector. Moderating effects of the extent of customers’ experience imply that bank brand managers should integrate the customer relationship lifecycle in their segmentation/targeting and in their customer‐brand relationship management.

This study highlights the potential of branding in the Vietnamese banking industry as a strategy to build strong customer relationships. It also strongly points out the need for brand managers to take into consideration the Vietnamese context and more precisely customers’ lack of banking experience and their tendency to social compliance.

Hairstyling entrepreneurs are experiencing increasing customer demand alongside the market competition. Building commercial friendships are one of their strategies to beat the competition. However, the marketing benefits in terms of loyalty and pricing from this strategy are unknown. Following suggestions from the relationship marketing theory (RMT) that business benefits are gained from commercial friendships, this study aims to use ideas from RMT and those from models proposed by Bove and Johnson (2002) and Han et al. (2008) to examine the impact of hairstylist-client commercial friendship on four dimensions of personal loyalty to individual hairstylists and clients’ willingness to pay a premium price (WTPP).

Quantitative methods were used to collect and analyse data obtained from 562 hairstylists’ clients who had maintained the same hairstylist for 10 months in Johannesburg metropolis. Structural equation modelling using SmartPLS was used to test a conceptual model with eight hypotheses.

The results revealed that commercial friendship positively impacted affective, intention and behavioural personal loyalty dimensions and explained 49%, 47.9% and 46.9% of the variances, respectively. Of the four dimensions of personal loyalty, only behavioural loyalty positively influenced WTPP.

Unlike previous studies’ main focus on business-to-customer relationships and loyalty from a unidimensional perspective, this study contributes by revealing four dimensions of personal loyalty applicable in the haircare service sector. The findings confirm the business benefits suggested by the RMT, by showing that commercial friendship generates clients’ WTPP when they are behaviourally loyal. This guarantees profits and highlights the importance of nurturing close relationships in personal services.

Interpersonal relationships can be a key success factor in many service businesses. A capable disc jockey, for example, may help a radio station in improving customer satisfaction. But does he/she help in building customer loyalty too? What happens if this employee leaves the organisation? The purpose of this paper is to assess the overall net effect that customer satisfaction with a key service employee may have on customer loyalty to a service firm.

The radio industry is selected as a specific case where a key service employee exists. A conceptual model is developed and tested on a sample of radio listeners using structural equation modelling.

The results confirm that customer satisfaction with a disc jockey increases personal loyalty to this employee. That outcome, in turn, cancels out part of the positive effects on customer loyalty to the radio station.

The model is tested within a specific service industry and the findings are not generalisable to contexts whose underlying characteristics differ from that industry. The aim is to propose a frame for estimating the net effects of relational trade‐offs with a key service employee. More generally, the study contributes to increased knowledge on the topic of customers' multiple levels of relationships.

When designing a value proposition in service industries where a key employee exists, it becomes especially important to add value elements and satisfaction drivers strictly referable to the firm and not to a specific person (e.g. image and reputation, behavioural consistency, overall experience, etc.).

The concept of “key service employee” is formally introduced and defined. A crossed design to weigh both direct and indirect relational outcomes is proposed. Loyalty to a key employee is explicitly measured as concurrent loyalty toward the firm.

The purpose of this study is to examine antecedents of the under researched area of customer feedback in a retail context with feedback defined as positive and negative comments as well as suggestions for product/service improvements. A market-oriented firm listens to customers and puts their feedback into practice. Research on customer engagement, which includes customer feedback, has recently surged. The preponderance of feedback research to date has been focused on customer complaint behavior which is negatively valenced. Much less attention has been paid to customer feedback (including sharing positive information, thoughts and suggestions for new ideas, in addition to negative information) even though it has great value for companies. This research addresses this gap by integrating literature on customer orientation and engagement and relationship marketing antecedents (social benefits) and outcomes (commitment) to better understand what retailers can do to encourage customer feedback through relationships with frontline employees.

This study employs a cross-sectional, single retailer approach surveying 864 customers who have varying relationships to a coffee house.

Conditional process analysis was used to test the hypothesized mediating and moderating relationships. Results were consistent with predictions, showing that retail employee customer-oriented behavior is mediated by customer social benefit perceptions to influence feedback. Further, social benefit perceptions will interact with the level of customer continuance commitment to impact feedback. Specifically, the impact of social benefits will be stronger when commitment to the retailer is higher.

This research has academic and practical implications by increasing our understanding of an underrepresented and valuable aspect of engagement – customer feedback. Specifically, it addresses a key marketing research priority set forth in a 2010 JSR special issue, calling for more work contributing to this topic. Also, this research implies managers have the ability to influence the amount of feedback that they receive by encouraging certain employee behaviors.