دانلود رایگان ترجمه مقاله تاثیر رضایت مشتری در فروش B2B (نشریه الزویر 2016)

رسانه های اجتماعی: تاثیر رضایت مشتری در فروش B2B

Social media: Influencing customer satisfaction in B2B sales

Abstract

Social media have changed how buyers and sellers interact, and increased involvement through social media may yield positive results for sales organizations if salespeople utilize it in facilitating their behaviors. Through the perspective of value creation, we test the mediating effects of salesperson information communication behaviors between social media use and customer satisfaction. Using salesperson-reported data, within a B2B context, we empirically test a model using structural equation modeling. Salesperson’s use of social media is found to impact information communication behaviors, which enhance salesperson responsiveness and customer satisfaction. Also, salesperson responsiveness is found to have a positive relationship with customer satisfaction. Findings suggest that social media plays an important role in communicating information to customers, but as an antecedent enhancing salesperson behaviors to increase customer satisfaction rather than a direct factor. This encourages managers to carefully assess goals related to social media use of their sales force.

2- Theoretical background

2-1 Information communication between buyer and seller

To develop our conceptual model, we align with the literature on information communication within sales and business relationships with the literature on sales technology. The first link in our conceptual model relates information communication with customer satisfaction and information communication to salesperson responsiveness.

The literature surrounding relationship marketing emphasizes the significance of communication between buyer and seller to solidify the relationship within the exchange process (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Communication, as posited by relational marketing scholars, can be described as the “information shared between exchange partners” (Palmatier, Dant, Grewal, & Evans, 2006, p. 138). Specifically, in the industrial selling context, researchers have highlighted the importance of information communication by the salesperson as a key contributor to customers’ positive experiences. For example, Ahearne, Jelinek, and Jones (2007) consider information communication as one of the behaviors that salespeople can use to improve customer satisfaction and trust, even after a purchase has been made. Similarly, Agnihotri et al. (2009) argue that during the sales process, “information communication can provide not only a ground for a winning proposition but also customer satisfaction” (p. 481).

Jones, Brown, Zoltners, and Weitz (2005) acknowledge the heightening expectations of buyers. Buyers have an increasingly higher level of expectations for the salesperson to be alert and sensitive to the customers’ needs. Salespeople have a need to focus on providing vital information in a quick and responsive manner, as industrial customers are often compelled to make competent business decisions in a swift manner.

Customers utilize their market relationships (Anderson & Dubinsky, 2004) in a similar manner as salespersons to enable “an effective and efficient means of obtaining information” (Crosby, Evans, & Coles, 1990, p. 77). The salesperson’s level of information communication can provide the customer with a responsive source of knowledge that is often required when purchasing a complex product or solution. Salespeople providing this information may be able to yield greater response timeliness and improve customer satisfaction. Hence, we suggest that a strong basis exists to theoretically link information communication to both customer satisfaction and to responsiveness.