Does salesperson's customer orientation create value in B2B relationships? Empirical evidence from India

Although value creation in business relationships has taken an important position in the literature, yet scant attention has been paid to the precise nature of creation or destruction of value in b2b customer-oriented selling. Moreover, very few empirical studies in the b2b customer value research h...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Industrial marketing management 2011, Vol.40 (1), p.78-85
Main Authors: Singh, Ramendra, Koshy, Abraham
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
b2b relationships
Business to business commerce
Customer orientation
Customer relations
Customer satisfaction
Customer service
Empirical research
Evidence
Industrial management
Management
Market orientation
Marketing
Sales
Salespeople
Salesperson
Small & medium sized enterprises-SME
SOCO
Studies
Value
Value added
Value creation
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Summary:Although value creation in business relationships has taken an important position in the literature, yet scant attention has been paid to the precise nature of creation or destruction of value in b2b customer-oriented selling. Moreover, very few empirical studies in the b2b customer value research have focused on emerging markets, especially the BRIC countries. This study carried out in the context of small and medium sized firms in India, empirically examines from the SOCO perspective (Saxe and Weitz, 1982), value creation in customer-oriented selling, and value destruction in sales-oriented strategies. We model value creation, relationship development, and customer satisfaction as direct and indirect consequences of salesperson's customer orientation. Based on a sample of 249 small and medium sized Indian firms, we show that salesperson's customer orientation directly leads to value creation and relationship development with customers. On the other hand, a sales orientation destroys value, although it may lead to relationship development in the short-term. We also found that customer satisfaction was unrelated to both types of salesperson's orientations. Our study has considerable impact for small and medium sized businesses in emerging BRIC markets such as India, as it throws light on how supplier firms can leverage their salesforce to create value creation with their customers.
ISSN:0019-8501
1873-2062
DOI:10.1016/j.indmarman.2010.09.012