NAILING DOWN SALES FORCE'S IMPACT ON CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE: THE ROLE OF SOLUTION SELLING

摘要

Academics and practitioners are interested in understanding how marketing investments impact on firm financial performance (Hanssens, Rust, and Srivastava 2009). One prominent category of marketing investment is the sales force. Indeed, in many markets, the sales force is responsible for designing, deploying, and selling customer solutions as a means of differentiating products and (co)creating value with the customer (Tuli, Kohli, and Bharadwaj 2007). Unfortunately, the literature regarding how the sales force creates value for the customer through solution selling or how the sales force impacts on customer lifetime value (CLV) is remarkably sparse. Against this background, this article draws on two studies and a rich data set to demonstrate how sales force's solution selling activities (SSAs, hereafter) trigger a chain of customer reactions that lead to increased levels of CLV. We define SSAs as the relational activities that salespeople undertake to define customers' requirements, customize and integrate goods/services, deploy goods and services, and provide postdeployment support to customers in order to meet their business needs.