The Benefits of Sales Force Automation

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, vol. XXIX, no. 2 (spring 2009), pp. 137–150.© 2009 PSE National Educational Foundation. All rights reserved.

ISSN 0885-3134 / 2009 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/PSS0885-3134290203

In competitive markets, success increasingly hinges on the means of developing and maintaining customer relationships. Forrester’s Trends in CRM 2009 indicate the importance of improving customer experience as a critical differentiation element. The sales environment is changing and fi rms need a new vision of the sales function to create more value and to gain competitive advantage. Consequently, companies invest heavily in customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions and especially in sales force automation (SFA) sys-tems (Widmier, Jackson, and McCabe 2002). In the context of this research, SFA involves the application of information technology to support the sales function.

A recent report of AMR Research estimates that customer management software revenues in 2007 topped $14 billion, which represents a 12 percent jump over 2006 revenues. Through their boundary-spanning activities, the sales force plays a strategic role in building mutually benefi cial long-term customer relationships (Weitz and Bradford 1999). Experts state that SFA implies remote access of salespeople to a continually updated centralized database (Parthasarathy and Sohi 1997). Therefore, SFA, which also represents op-erational CRM applications in support of selling tasks, has

great potential for the collection and dissemination of market information and the development of value-added customer relationships (Ahearne et al. 2008; Day 1992).

Early research in the area of SFA focused on issues sur-rounding the adoption and diffusion of technology (Jelinek et al. 2006; Jones, Sundaram, and Chin 2002; Rangarajan, Jones, and Chin 2005; Schillewaert et al. 2005; Speier and Venkatesh 2002), followed by research pertaining to the impact of sales technology on salespeople’s individual performance (Ahearne and Schillewaert 2001; Sundaram et al. 2007). In recent years, the issue of SFA technology benefi ts has come to the forefront in trade journals and academic research. Whereas managerial literature advocates the potential benefi ts of SFA in terms of productivity and customer service, more research is needed to support these assertions. Despite many calls for empirical research on SFA (Buttle, Ang, and Iriana 2006), empirical results remain sparse in terms of demonstrating the benefi ts associated with SFA adoption and use and the changes related to the way selling is done (Ahearne et al. 2008; Hunter and Perreault 2007).

Research mainly concentrates on the benefi ts of SFA for managers or salespeople (Ahearne and Schillewaert 2001; Barnes and Engle 1995), but to our knowledge, no research has focused on the customer’s perspective. In fact, the customer point of view is crucial, in that it might refl ect the effective and objective impact of SFA (Ahearne, Srinivasan, and Weinstein 2004; Engle and Barnes 2000; Honeycutt et al. 2005). SFA is mainly directed at improving sales force productivity and this process should obviously have an impact on the customer. For this reason, the way the customer assesses changes in the operational effi ciency of sales meetings and contacts through skills, competencies, and behaviors of automated salespeople should be the best evidence of SFA success.

THE BENEFITS OF SALES FORCE AUTOMATION: A CUSTOMER’S PERSPECTIVE

Othman Boujena, Wesley J. Johnston, and Dwight R. Merunka

This paper examines the benefi ts of sales force automation from the customer’s perspective within a framework based on theories from the sales and information systems literature relating to the benefi ts of the implementation of information technology. An in-depth study using qualitative research tools is conducted among managers occupying “buyer/logistic” positions within customer organizations to identify perceived benefi ts of the use of sales force automation (SFA) systems by their vendors. Three content analytical techniques (thematic, lexical, and cognitive mapping) are used to uncover the benefi ts most valued by management in customer organizations. Results demonstrate that customers perceive benefi ts on four main dimensions of their interaction with salespersons—salespeople’s professionalism, customer interaction frequency, salesperson responsiveness, and salesperson–customer relationship quality. This study is the fi rst to examine aspects of SFA from the customer perspective.

Othman Boujena (Ph.D., Paul Cézanne University), Associate Professor of Marketing, Rouen Business School, [email protected].

Wesley J. Johnston (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh), CBIM Round-table Professor of Marketing, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, [email protected].

Dwight R. Merunka (Ph.D., Paul Cézanne University), Professor of Marketing, Aix Graduate School of Management, Paul Cézanne University Aix-Marseilles and EUROMED School of Management, [email protected].

138 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

Many calls are made today from research companies such as Forrester or SFA vendors leaders such as salesforce.com to focus more on customer-oriented metrics than internal return on investment (ROI) when measuring the CRM/SFA impact. Customers expect from salespeople timely and accurate infor-mation, prompt answers to requests, personalized offers, and market expertise (Atkinson and Koprowski 2006). Moreover, Homburg and Rudolf (2001) identifi ed customer satisfaction toward sales force interaction as the most important dimension of overall customer satisfaction in industrial settings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine SFA benefi ts from the customers’ perspective and within a relationship-building process. Borrowing from the information systems (IS)/information technology (IT) and SFA literature, we identify the types of benefi ts related to the use of sales technology in the fi rst part of the paper. We then conduct an exploratory qualitative study enabling us to uncover the benefi ts perceived by buyers using thematic content analysis, lexical analysis, and cognitive mapping techniques.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

SFA technologies enhance performance by increasing the effi -ciency and productivity of salespeople and improving both the quality and quantity of communications among salespersons, the buying organization, and the selling fi rm (Colombo 1993; Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw 1989; Keillor, Bashaw, and Pet-tijohn 1997; Srinivasan 1985). Brynjolfsson and Yang (1997) suggest that more than 90 percent of the benefi ts of computer capital emerge from otherwise unobserved intangible assets. Borrowing from IS and sales literature, we identify the most often-cited benefi ts of SFA/IT and focus on those that pertain to salesperson–customer interactions and that are likely to be perceived by buyers. It appears that SFA affects the sales function on fi ve main levels:

• productivity, • information processing, • communication effectiveness, • perceived competence, and • customer relationship quality.

Salesperson Productivity

Generally, SFA is considered to occur when fi rms computerize their routine tasks or adopt technological tools to improve the effectiveness and effi ciency of their sales force. One of the main objectives of SFA applications is to help salespeople better ac-complish their daily activities. Proponents of technology use by sales forces have long advocated its potential to increase productivity (Hitt and Brynjolfsson 1996; Hunter and Per-reault 2007; Moriarty and Swartz 1989; Wedell and Hempeck 1987). One study suggests relationships among IT use by sales

managers, sales management activity, and sales performance (Barnes and Engle 1995), and various well-developed models address the causal relationship between general IT and indi-vidual performance (DeLone and McLean 1992; Goodhue and Thompson 1995; Hunter and Perreault 2007).

Regarding effectiveness, Verity (1993) identifi es several benefi ts from computerization, such as the reduction of errors common to manual sales processing, reduced support costs, improved closing rates, and increased average selling prices as a result of more accurate and timely pricing information. According to Pullig, Maxham, and Hair (2002), effective SFA implementation can lead to enhanced productivity through better customer prospecting, development, and account profi l-ing. A salesperson generally has more and better (e.g., timely, accurate) information to work with when using SFA tools, which results in increased capacity to understand customer needs, provide alternatives, make better decisions, develop more valuable customer relationships, and improve productiv-ity (Hill and Swenson 1994). Finally, technology researchers argue that IT can facilitate data interpretations and analyses (Huber 1990) and favorably infl uence personal effectiveness (Igbaria and Tan 1997).

In addition to enhancing sales effectiveness, Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn (1997) and Pullig, Maxham, and Hair (2002) theorize that using technology tools improves salesperson ef-fi ciency. SFA reduces the time spent on administrative tasks and provides faster access to timely information (Rivers and Dart 1999). Therefore, SFA tools may enable better territory management by increasing salespersons’ availability to custom-ers and more relevant information delivery. Khandpur and Wevers (1998) indicate that SFA planning functions allow for downtime identifi cation in the salesperson’s schedule and then direct new leads to the salesperson during those times. In addition to that, salespeople can access a centralized SFA system while traveling and identify the closest accounts to plan and make their sales calls (Ahearne, Jelinek, and Rapp 2005; Wedell and Hempeck 1987). Also, contact management tools can enhance salesperson effi ciency by enabling contacts organization based on different criteria (industry, region, po-tential purchase, etc.). Finally, a company can expect SFA to deliver faster response times (Gilbert 2004), which is crucial to improve customer service quality.

Information Processing

SFA applications are designed to improve salesperson ability to gather, analyze, and share product, customer, and competitor information. Thanks to centralized CRM database, SFA enable sales force–facilitated and faster access to a huge amount of information on products, customer records, competitive offers, and new leads. Therefore, salespeople can better inform the customer about product specifi cations and usage situations

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and more accurately fulfi ll customer needs, and that enables the company to offer more products and services and perform more appropriate customer data analyses.

During initial customer contacts, SFA can help salespersons by allowing them faster access to targeted information, thereby reducing the time needed to prepare for meeting presenta-tions, as well as the number of follow-ups when the customer requests additional information (Taylor 1994). Salespeople who use technology can sift through customer data and focus on critical information, putting them in a better position to demonstrate customer interest and make the sale. For example, the salesperson can track customer records and then identify accounts that might be good prospects for cross-selling and up-selling efforts, as well as those that may no longer remain profi table (Jayachandran et al. 2005).

Communication Effectiveness

Sales technology applications enhance salespeople’s ability to communicate clearly and rapidly with customers and contacts (Hunter and Perreault 2007; Rice and Blair 1984; Sproull and Kiesler 1986), which improves their responsiveness and capacity to fi t customer needs (Ahearne et al. 2008). For example, interactive presentation tools enable salespeople to make more effective comparisons between their products and competitive offers, to demonstrate a personalized content, and to provide customer-oriented solutions through automated sales confi gurations (Khandpur and Wevers 1998). Along these lines, Ahearne and Schillewaert (2001) fi nd a positive effect of IT on sales presentation quality and adaptive selling behaviors. The effects of SFA also include easier information exchange due to less communication inhibitions, facilitated maintaining of customer relationships, and increased com-munication among geographically distant individuals (Engle and Barnes 2000). From a company standpoint, the greatest potential of SFA stems from shared contact information and increased coordination across the company’s various customer service functions. Firms that use SFA systems to initiate su-perior market-sensing and customer-linking capabilities are in a position to inform and guide internal processes respon-sible for creating customer value (Pullig, Maxham, and Hair 2002), as well as understand customer needs more easily across functions. The combined result is a more knowledgeable and competent sales force and support staff.

Salesperson Competence

Competence, in this research, refers to the customer’s percep-tion that a salesperson is knowledgeable in areas related to products, customer needs, and market intelligence (Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997). By increasing both the volume and the quality of market intelligence and the speed of ac-

cess, SFA increases the perceived competence of salespersons (Huber 1990). A survey indicates that sales managers believe information technology infl uences buyers’ perceptions of salesperson competency; 90 percent of those surveyed decided to automate their sales force because it made the salesperson appear more professional and competent (Colombo 1994; Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997).

Thanks to SFA, salespeople can review customer purchase and payment record, prompting them to ask questions that improve their understanding of existing customer needs and future requirements. Ahearne and Schillewaert (2000) and Ahearne et al. (2008) also fi nd positive correlations between technology usage and market and technical knowledge. Furthermore, greater access to database knowledge held else-where in the sales organization can be crucial in helping the salesperson build customer trust and commitment, as well as ward off competitors. These arguments all suggest an indirect effect on customer relationship quality (Park, Holloway, and Deitz 2005).

Customer Relationship Quality

While previously identifi ed categories are more directly re-lated to the salesperson, customer relationship quality can be considered as the outcome category that crystallizes on the customer side the effect of SFA on sales force abilities and be-haviors. Customer relationship quality refers to the bundle of intangible value related to the interchange between buyers and sellers (Lagace, Dahlstrom, and Gassenheimer 1991) and is defi ned as a buyer’s trust in a salesperson and satisfaction with the relationship (Crosby, Evans, and Cowles 1990). Successful relationships are characterized by high levels of mutual trust and commitment between parties (Morgan and Hunt 1994). Ahearne, Jelinek, and Jones (2007) defi ne “salesperson service behaviors” such as responsiveness, speed in answering customer requests, and salesperson diligence, and underline their role in helping to build satisfaction and trust satisfaction. Concerning the impact of CRM technology on relationship quality, Hitt and Brynjolfsson (1996) indicate that overall IT investment leads to increased customer value, and Fisher (2001) states that the “people side” of CRM is probably the most important element. Technological changes can heighten interactions in terms of time, intensity, and emotions (Kasper-Fuehrer and Ashkanasy 2001). In a selling context, SFA facilitates the de-velopment of buyer–seller relationships through its impact on trust drivers and enhances the buyer’s trust in the salesperson (Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997). As many as fi ve factors may increase the potential for buyer–salesperson trust (Hawes, Mast, and Swan 1989). These include customer orientation, competency, honesty, dependability, and likability. SFA may help salespersons in developing customer trust by allowing them to better demonstrate trust driving behaviors.


Salespeople customer orientation relies on their ability to demonstrate customer interest by emphasizing product benefi ts, providing solutions to customer problems, and being readily available when needed. Technology can assist salespeople as they seek to communicate customer benefi ts more effectively through interactive sales presentations putting the product within a context or situation that is appropriate for the buyer (Ahearne and Schillewaert 2001). By accessing databases, the salesperson can retrieve the appropriate informa-tion that will solve the buyer’s problems with regard to his or her objectives and constraints. The ability to quickly address customer problems and questions can increase salesperson credibility as well as trust in the salesperson. Widely used technology such as e-mail, fax machines, voice mail, and cel-lular phones help provide easier access to salespeople, which enables a customer’s concerns or diffi culties to be addressed more rapidly (Jones, Stevens, and Chonko 2006; Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997).

Dependability involves the buyer’s perception and expec-tation that the salesperson will keep commitments (Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997). Dependability contains a poten-tial relational dimension in a sense that it’s generally developed over time and with regard to arising situations. SFA contact management applications, for example, can help a salesperson recognize, remember, and follow through on commitments to customers and ensure regular contact. These features allow the salesperson to keep commitments and enhance regular contacts with customers—increasing customer perceptions of the salesperson’s dependability (Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997). Finally, SFA might contribute to customer satisfaction by enhancing the salesperson’s ability to meet customer expec-tations. If these qualitative relational outcomes are achieved, there may be monetary or tangible benefi ts as market share, share of category requirements, or turnover. Some evidence indicates that the implementation of SFA tools leads to higher revenues due to increased closure rates and higher customer retention, which stems from enhanced customer satisfaction (Fisher 1998).

We have identifi ed a range of potential benefi ts of SFA usage from the literature. We now wish to both verify the existence of these benefi ts and possibly uncover others through fi eld investigation. We therefore conduct a qualitative exploratory study with a sample of industrial buyers in contact with sales-people who use SFA tools.

RESEARCH METHOD

Sample and Data Collection

We conducted a qualitative study through semistructured in-depth interviews with seven buyers or purchasing managers from different industries (see Table 1). The saturation principle

based on thematic exhaustiveness and data variability was adopted to lead the interviewing process (Guest, Bunce, and Johnson 2006) and the sample size is in line with the levels required for exploratory qualitative studies (Kuzel 1992). The buyers were identifi ed through a cascade process during which we contacted the main SFA vendors who provided us with companies (sales managers and their salespeople) using their tools that, in turn, indicated their customers. The interviewed buyers demonstrate an experience of at least two years with salespeople and exposure to SFA tools. This period is enough to reach the SFA implementation process maturity, to know the salesperson, and, consequently, to better assess SFA benefi ts (Engle and Barnes 2000; Geiger and Turley 2006). Participants were asked to indicate the benefi ts for them of dealing with a salesperson using SFA according to the following interview guide:

• SFA defi nition: description by the interviewer of tools and applications to ensure a common understanding of what SFA means.

• SFA benefi ts identifi cation: could you tell us what does SFA change in your interaction with the salesperson?

• Impact on supplier relationship: does this change any-thing in the perception of your supplier?

Because of the semistructured method, our interviewing process had a beforehand framework of themes to be explored but remained fl exible to allow new ideas to emerge. To ensure that the provided benefi ts are attributed to SFA usage by sup-pliers’ salespeople (variance source), we asked interviewees to answer by contrasting with a non- or less-automated salesper-son. The main objective of this research stage was to assess the relevance of the identifi ed benefi ts and uncover new ones.

Interviews were recorded and then transcribed to be content analyzed using established qualitative data analysis techniques (Miles and Huberman 1994). The overarching objective of our investigation was to identify the benefi ts of SFA perceived by buyers. For this purpose, we analyzed the interviews’ corpus using a methodological triangulation—thematic content analysis, lexical analysis, and cognitive mapping.

Data Analysis

Thematic Content Analysis

Thematic content analysis refers to the process through which transcribed interviews are dissected into meaningful semantic units called “themes” or “codes.” These semantic units rep-resent thematic categories derived from an agreement-based coding process inspired by our research question. Following Miles and Huberman (1994), we adopt a two-step coding procedure. The fi rst step consists of comprehending, syn-thesizing, and sorting inductive themes both manually and

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using the N’Vivo software. In the second step, we refi ne our thinking about codes by theorizing and generating meta-thematic categories that match the themes (nodes for N’Vivo) and concepts identifi ed in the literature. Our assignment of themes to meta-categories (see Table 2) is subject to an infer-ence mode based on their proximity to the defi nition of the related concepts (Miles and Huberman 1994). To ensure cod-ing reliability, interviews were double coded; the agreement coeffi cient Cohen’s kappa equals 80 percent.

Lexical Analysis

Here, our objective is to (1) characterize the corpus according to indicators and statistical measurement and (2) help rapid understanding of the corpus through lexical approximation. We focus our attention on the words cited most frequently by the buyers when they evoke benefi ts. In Table 3, we provide some of the key words, which together represent approximately 75 percent of the main words carried in the lexical analysis. For example, the word “presentation” has been cited 54 times by customers and represents 17.65 percent of total words identifi ed in the corpus.

Cognitive Mapping

To gain an in-depth understanding of buyers’ perceptions of SFA benefi ts, we conduct a cognitive mapping procedure us-ing Decision Explorer (version 3.2.0) software (Ackermann and Eden 2005). The term “cognitive map” was used fi rst by Tolman (1948) and has since been widely employed in psy-chological science. In organizational studies, the term traces back to Axelrod (1976), who uses it to analyze the decisions of politicians and decision-making bodies. Cognitive mapping begins at the individual level to represent the cognitions of each interviewed buyer. We then aggregate the data to produce a cognitive map of the phenomena under scrutiny at the group level (all buyers).

Concerning individual cognitive mapping, Langfi eld-Smith and Wirth (1992) posit that each cognitive map contains in-dividual beliefs concerning a particular domain at a point in time. For our research, cognitive mapping enables us to capture in detail buyers’ thoughts and ideas about SFA benefi ts, and then explore them to gain additional insights. The associated software generates comprehensive qualitative models through map building. Because we are interested in identifying the benefi ts stemming from SFA usage, we adopt causal mapping to underline links, following an unstructured method (text based), to explore the interview corpus and look for causal indicators. Using the software, we represent the structural rela-tions between concepts. Similar to a research model, we refer to every variable as a concept or node, and each arrow refers to a causal cited relationship (Axelrod 1976). Finally, we draw

individual maps for each buyer and provide an example of a causal cognitive map with the representation of SFA benefi ts as perceived by a particular buyer (Figure 1). To ensure validity, each interviewee has been shown his or her map and asked if it accurately refl ects the causal relationships mentioned.

Next, we aggregate buyers’ cognitions using average map-ping to ensure accurate and comprehensive representation (Bougon, Weick, and Binkhorst 1977; Ford and Hegarty 1984). This collective mapping method consists of generating a causal composite map that represents the average shared vision of SFA benefi ts from the buyers’ perspective. To identify the average underlined links, we index (for each map) the causal links mentioned for every pair of concepts in a disjunctive similarities table. This comparative table represents the relations between concepts in rows and the statement of interviewees in columns. The existence of a causal link (intersection), or lack thereof, in each interviewee’s comments is then binary coded as 1 when the interviewee indicates the relation and 0 when it is not mentioned (Figure 2). Finally, we operate a topographical analysis of buyers’ cognitive maps (see Table 4). During this step, we examine the maps’ structure and organization (Eden, Ackerman, and Cropper 1992; Weick and Bougon 1986).

RESULTS

The triangulated content analysis of interviews allows (1) the identifi cation of SFA benefi ts for the customer, (2) the rank-ing of these benefi ts with regard to their importance and obviousness for customers, and (3) the revelation of value creation mechanisms of SFA from the customer’s perspective. According to the meta-categorization process, we obtained 10 meta-thematic categories. Professionalism appears to be the most important category with an occurrence rate of 23.5 percent. This benefi t covers themes such as salesperson image, argumentation relevance, or salesperson organization. The second main benefi t concerns customer interaction frequency which represents an occurrence rate of 19.1 percent. It essen-tially covers critical information exchange with the salesperson related to product or market knowledge. Responsiveness takes

Table 1Sample Characteristics

Company’s Industry Interviewee’s Position

Telecommunications Buying managerConsulting Buying managerConsumer goods Wrapping and packaging buying managerCosmetics Buying managerManufacturing Buying managerConsumer goods Buying managerRetail Logistics and retail manager


the third rank and reveals the importance of the contribution of SFA to help the salesperson in providing a prompt answer to customer requests. We should notice here that those three benefi ts represent already more than 50 percent of cumulated occurrence rate. In the same line, lexical analysis results point out that sales presentation is the most cited word when evoking SFA benefi ts (Table 2). Results indicate also that SFA is an image vector that leads to associations in the minds of custom-ers concerning the salesperson, the brand, and the supplier (Table 1, Figures 1 and 2). For example, customers indicate that equipping salespersons with SFA makes the brand appear trendy. The relationship between the customer and supplier is another impact level of SFA. According to customers, the usage of SFA by salespeople contributes to reinforcing the relationship with the supplier through better satisfaction, trust, and commitment. This can lead customers to recom-mend their supplier on the basis of perceived service quality and demonstrated customer orientation.

Concerning maps’ topographical analysis, as a source of benefi ts, SFA seems to be the central concept in all maps,

Table 3Most Cited Words

Citation Percent of TotalWords Frequency Words Identifi ed

Presentation 54 17.65Customer 25 8.17Time 17 5.56Image 16 5.23Quality 15 4.9Response 15 4.9Exchange 13 4.25Computers 13 4.25Information 10 3.27Reporting 10 3.27Sales call 10 3.27Management 8 2.61Communication 7 2.29Comprehension 6 1.96Effectiveness 6 1.96Commitment 6 1.96

Table 2Generated Meta-Thematic Categories

Themes Meta-Thematic Categories Coding Percent of(First-Level Coding) (Perceived Benefi ts) Frequency Total

Salesperson image Professionalism 43 23.5Argumentation relevanceProfessionalismSalesperson organizationSalesperson relationship

Information exchange Customer interaction frequency 35 19.1Customer informationOffer knowledge

Responsiveness Responsiveness 30 16.4EffectivenessService

Trendiness Supplier image 27 14.8Brand imageCorporate image

Trust Customer–supplier relationship 19 10.4Supplier relationshipRecommendationCommitmentSatisfaction

Customer knowledge Customer knowledge 9 4.9

Adaptive selling Adaptive selling 7 3.8

Decision-making uncertainty Decision-making uncertainty 5 2.7

Availability Availability 4 2.2

Proactivity Proactivity 4 2.2

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and all described effects start from SFA. As far as structure is concerned, buyers identify an important number of concepts (30) related to salespeople productivity and professionalism. Besides, customers demonstrate an assessment of SFA effects and value-creation mechanisms by stating more than 100 links between concepts. Consequently, the density that represents links to concepts ratio equals 3.36 and means that each concept (node) holds three links on average.

DISCUSSION

Consistent with our predictions and the statements set forth in sales and IS theory, the qualitative study’s fi ndings support the overall assertion that the usage of SFA contributes signifi cantly to relationship-based selling. Based on the analysis of qualitative data, we uncover four major SFA perceived benefi ts: salesperson professionalism, customer interaction frequency, responsive-ness, and customer–salesperson relationship quality.

Salesperson Professionalism

Professionalism is the most frequently perceived SFA benefi t from the buyers’ perspective (Table 2, Figures 1 and 2). Ac-cording to Knoll and Tankersley (1991), professionalism is a function of three criteria—behavior, salesperson’s image, and

appearance. Many authors also stress the communication aspect of professionalism (e.g., Jackson, Keith, and Schlacter 1983; Pilling and Eroglu 1994), though professionalism may also refer to the general behavior of the salesperson.

I think that the personality shows through the presentations. (Telecommunications)

As a result of their capacities, SFA tools give the sales-person the means to demonstrate his or her know-how in a sales context. Several studies have demonstrated the impact of technology on individual behaviors (e.g., sales presenta-tion, adaptive selling); for example, Behrman and Perreault (1982) indicate that well-thought-out and well-done sales presentations and the ability to work well with customers are important behavioral dimensions of salesperson performance. By allowing high-quality product demonstrations and better graphical visualizations, SFA is likely to enable salespersons to give clear and effective presentations.

Yes! absolutely, it helps, absolutely because all fi gures are im-mediately available. . . . I have seen some presentations with videos, it’s very nice. (Consumer goods)

More conviviality, it [SFA] illustrates proposals, it al-lows quick computation, it’s a communication support. (Manufacturing)

Figure 1Sample Individual Causal Cognitive Map

19


Furthermore, SFA can help salespersons better address cus-tomer questions through profi ling and previous calls records (Jones, Stevens, and Chonko 2006). These assertions are also supported by customers’ statements.

According to the lexical analysis results, “presentation” is the word cited most often by buyers when evoking SFA benefi ts, possibly because sales presentations offer one of the most straightforward witnessed salesperson behaviors. Furthermore, SFA applications designed to create sales presentations gener-ally are spread among selling companies, which renders this feature obvious to all.

As Marshall, Moncrief, and Lassk (1999) report, IT im-proves the professionalism by which sales calls are prepared.

By providing access to large amounts of data, SFA enables sales representatives to tailor their sales messages to each customer (Ahearne and Schillewaert 2001), a form of adaptive selling, or alter sales approaches across and during customer interac-tions (Spiro and Weitz 1990; Sujan, Weitz, and Sujan 1988). A salesperson supported by automated technology can determine more easily which products to prioritize during a sales call and can customize the sales presentation content accordingly. These behaviors can be interpreted as a customer orientation and thereby denote the salesperson’s willingness to care about buyers’ needs. Appropriately, the word “customer” frequently appears in the interviews as a description of SFA advantages.

Ah, exactly proactivity, yeah, uh, proposal strength. (Telecommunications)

Finally, though professionalism pertains to the general per-ceived behavior of salespersons, it also expresses perceptions of the salesperson’s image. In this sense, customers indicated that using technology can project a trendy, well-organized image for the salesperson. They also added that such technological tools have a structuring effect on salesperson task accomplishment (e.g., call planning, presentation conception, offer generation, communication effectiveness), and because the salesperson is the fi rm’s external representative, these positive image at-tributes get transferred to the selling company and its brands (see buyers’ shared perceptions in Figure 2).

Figure 2Buyers’ Average Causal Map

Table 4Topographical Analysis of Cognitive Maps

Indicators Buyers

Maps’ Structure Differentiation Number of concepts 30 Interconnection Number of links 101 Density 3.36Maps’ Organization Central concept SFA

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Even if the salesperson is not, if he hasn’t a rationale personal-ity, . . . this type of applications inevitably forces some rigor. (Consumer goods)

Customer Interaction Frequency

The second major benefi t refers to the concept of customer interaction frequency (CIF), defi ned as a means of communica-tion that reinforces the coordination between partners by diffus-ing critical information and thereby leads to relationship success (Crosby, Evans, and Cowles 1990; Lagace, Dahlstrom, and Gas-senheimer 1991; Mohr and Nevin 1990). Information exchange plays a crucial role in industrial relations, and one of the main functions of the sales force is to manage information (Darmon 1993; Moncrief 1986). Due to their boundary-spanning roles, salespeople represent a valuable source and bridge of informa-tion for buyers in various areas, including product, market (Behrman and Perreault 1982), promotion, customer behavior, and competitor information. By improving the information processes, IT enables the salesperson to better inform customers (Grover, Teng, and Cheon 1998; Huber 1990).

There are several [advantages] in fact of technology . . . , it helps understanding the company with which one deals, if I ask him to send me the presentation of his company, he will send me a PowerPoint presentation with turnover, potential customers, I mean key customers, his know-how and argu-ments. (Telecommunications)

Specifi cally, as a result of its storage, retrieval, and network capacities, SFA facilitates the processes of information col-lection, analysis, and sharing (Marshall, Moncrief, and Lassk 1999). In other words, SFA offers salespeople an expansive cen-tralized memory of people and databases with which they may update their knowledge about business processes (Day 1992; Parthasarathy and Sohi 1997). The resultant enhanced infor-mation role of the salesperson gives buyers tremendous help during the decision-making process, because, as organizational literature notes, uncertainty reduction is the most important challenge for decision makers such as buyers. Decision-making uncertainty is “the diffi culty experienced by the decision maker in predicting the outcomes of a purchase decision in terms of its likely benefi ts and costs” (Duncan 1972; Kohli 1989); therefore, the better informed the salesperson is and the more information he or she offers the buyer, the more likely the salesperson can reduce the perceived risks or uncertainty of the buyer (Henthorne, La Tour, and Williams 1993; Jackson, Keith, and Burdick 1984; Moriarty and Spekman 1984). As a relationship-building practice (Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987), SFA holds the promise of helping customers make effective decisions (Gao et al. 2002).

The other aspect of CIF deals with communication, or the channel and format of information diffusion. Electronic

communication media provide access to the database from anywhere, including in the midst of a sales call, and can com-municate data in almost any format.

We communicate only by e-mail. (Telecommunications)

What’s important is the quality of the electronic documents sent. (Consulting)

The fi nal dimension of CIF deals with interaction fre-quency, which depends on call planning (Sujan, Weitz, and Kumar 1994). By running specifi c data queries, salespeople can list and sort customers to determine their call priorities. By replacing the calendar, SFA applications enable sales represen-tatives to manage their time effectively, set up appointments accurately, and perform sustained planning. Consequently, buyers are approached by the salesperson as needed and with appropriate frequency. Calls from salespeople are better informed, so meetings become more structured and focused because the object of the call has already been communicated to the buyer (e.g., by e-mail) and appropriate follow-ups ensue. As we show in Figure 2, following up with customers and availability represent key elements for a majority of the buyers we interviewed.

Salesperson Responsiveness

The information and communication capacities of SFA sys-tems render salespeople more responsive to and available for customer requests. Responsiveness has been defi ned as the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry 1988). As a result of pa-perless communication, a salesperson can answer customers in real time and offer a service of good quality (Ahearne et al. 2008). Our interviews also show that it is important for buyers to be able to reach the salesperson whenever needed, which highlights the concept of availability, or the presence of the salesperson for problem solving during the business cycle (Cooper, Dröge, and Daugherty 1991), that has been identi-fi ed as a meta-category (Table 2). In addition, the adoption of SFA tools by salespeople should help them concentrate more on their territory management because it automates their administrative tasks (Wedell and Hempeck 1987).

Customer–Salesperson Relationship Quality

When customers benefi t from SFA through enhanced sales-person professionalism and interaction quality, relational out-comes follow. In accordance with Huber’s (1990) theory and several IT studies, we consider the impact of SFA on customer–salesperson relationship quality to be indirect (Brynjolfsson and Yang 1996; Mooney, Gurbaxani, and Kraemer 1996), such


that it follows from the enhancement of salespersons’ behav-iors and competence. Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990) state that salespersons’ knowledge benefi ts the quality of customer relationships; furthermore, relational outcomes strengthen over time and through multiple interactions. Therefore, they should take place after the relationship development.

It improves the communication with the customer. (Con-sumer goods)

The average causal map also indicates that in buyers’ minds, enhanced customer information means greater trust in the salesperson. In addition, the capacity of salespeople to solve customers’ problems and help them make effective decisions because of SFA can lead to trust.

Meanwhile, a high-quality interaction and exchange of valuable information between SFA-supported salespeople and customers infl uences commitment. With regard to satisfaction, defi ned as a “customer’s emotional state in response to its evalu-ation of an interaction with the salesperson” (Crosby, Evans, and Cowles 1990), Homburg and Rudolph (2001) show that such interactions provide a crucial dimension of satisfaction in industrial settings. Thus, SFA tools that help sales forces better meet customer expectations likely infl uence customer satisfaction as well. In support of this claim, the average causal map in Figure 2 indicates that satisfaction follows customer knowledge and reliable argumentation.

He is able, based on my previous orders, to propose me other prices, or other items, or other solutions. (Telecommunications)

Finally, when a satisfi ed buyer assesses the relationship with a supplier’s salesperson positively, he or she is more likely to recommend the seller to other purchasing professionals.

To summarize, our results indicate that from the customer’s perspective, SFA is changing the way selling is done by im-pacting different levels of the sales functions. By enhancing salesperson professionalism, interaction frequency, and respon-siveness, SFA leads to a more customer-oriented selling, which helps to build and develop better customer relationships. Thus, SFA is a set of applications aimed not only at automating manual tasks but also at making every customer interaction an opportunity to increase satisfaction and ensure loyalty.

CONCLUSION

The current research helps in identifying and understanding how SFA may be benefi cial from the customers’ perspective. It represents an important extension of SFA research which shows that it is increasingly implemented in line with a relationship-building approach. Furthermore, most studies on SFA call for customer-centric research. To explore this topic,

we combine three qualitative methods to gain an in-depth understanding of buyers’ SFA considerations. Specifi cally, we perform a thematic content analysis, a lexical analysis, and a study of cognition through cognitive causal mapping; the latter approach has rarely been used in management and particularly in marketing. Our study of the perceptions of buyers, especially those that pertain to a domain for which no research results are available, relies on cognitive mapping to reveal interviewees’ thoughts, beliefs, and causal interactions. From a substantive standpoint, our fi ndings indicate that the main benefi ts of SFA as perceived by buyers focus on profes-sionalism, customer interaction frequency, responsiveness, and relationship quality. These fi ndings coincide with theoretical models developed in the literature. As in other studies of the impact of IT, our qualitative results support the existence of direct effects of SFA on information and communication processes in sales activities, as well as indirect effects on rela-tional outcomes.

From a methodological standpoint, this research employs qualitative methods and could then encourage qualitative approaches within the sales domain. In addition to that, this study demonstrates the potential of cognitive mapping to examine perceptions and to clarify a complex problem that entails both technology and human interactions.

From a theoretical point of view, this paper provides a quali-tative examination of SFA benefi ts that have been organized in fi ve main levels. It also analyzes the impact of SFA from a cus-tomer’s perspective, which offers insight into underresearched and intangible facets of the return on investment on SFA. The fi ndings show how the effect of SFA on salespersons’ cognition and behavior results in relational outcomes. Whereas previous research mainly has studied the impact of SFA in terms of sales outcomes (e.g., turnover, market share), we reveal its impact on customer–salesperson relationships, which are crucial because relationship quality leads to increased purchase and loyalty. We therefore propose that the impact of SFA on sales should be studied through a series of mediating variables, some of which we identify here, such as customer relationship quality. The exploratory aspect of our study enables us to reveal several value-creation mechanisms through which SFA usage might infl uence customer relationships.

Our results thus suggest additional research to confi rm our exploratory fi ndings and analyze the benefi ts further, such as professionalism, image (brand, corporate), interaction quality, salesperson proactivity, customer decision-making as-sistance, and relational outcomes. In addition, the analysis of our qualitative material leads us to identify a set of concepts (sales presentation, responsiveness, adaptive selling, trust, commitment) that should be integrated into a research model and empirically tested to confi rm the benefi ts of SFA from the customer’s perspective. The next step is naturally to build and test a comprehensive model of the impact of SFA on cus-

Spring 2009 147

tomer relationship quality and buying behavior. At this level, our qualitative study allows us to identify some factors that are critical to the assessment of SFA benefi ts by customers. In fact, while interviewing buyers, we noticed that salesperson familiarity, customer attitude toward IT, and customer usage level of IT are determinants for SFA benefi ts perception. Thus, future studies should integrate these variables as moderators of the effect of SFA as perceived by buyers. In addition to this, future research could benefi t from taking a sector-based approach. The mix of relational competencies varies across industries and the impact of SFA usage on relationship selling could be partly industry specifi c.

Finally, from a managerial standpoint, this study sheds light on new means for evaluating returns and justifying in-vestments in SFA that go beyond salespersons’ productivity. Managers should reconsider studying or communicating the effects of SFA solutions. For example, SFA vendors com-municate success stories and tend to stress the impact of SFA solutions on sales and profi ts to prove the short-term profi t-ability of these systems. Also, many companies invest in SFA as a matter of blind faith, to align with their competitors, or to improve salespeople’s productivity.

Our results provide insight on the relationship-building role of SFA which is probably not considered by research sug-gesting that up to 70 percent of SFA/CRM projects fail or do not allow any obvious benefi ts (Reinartz, Krafft, and Hoyer 2004). The perception of SFA benefi ts by the customer shows that the impact of IT on productivity can be channeled in a profi table way through customer satisfaction improvement. We believe that fi rms should move toward an approach of SFA that involves the customers—the central focus of all marketing and the key to gain competitive advantage—by considering the relational consequences of SFA. Communicating clearly on this focus might improve the acceptance and usage of SFA solutions by salespersons if they can be convinced of the positive consequences on customer perceptions, customer re-lationships, and customer satisfaction, which are important to them in their everyday challenge to achieve objectives. A recent study of Hunter and Perreault (2006) underlines the role of salesperson’s technology orientation in generating performance under management infl uence. Also, when evaluating the contribution of SFA, management should look at customer-related aspects to measure ROI. These aspects should also be considered to balance the compensation system.

However, this study does have some limitations. First, al-though we start by positioning SFA as a part of CRM applica-tions, our theoretical framework covers a broader approach of SFA including IT and all sales technologies. The objective was to identify the main benefi ts related to salesperson–customer interaction and that are likely to be perceived by the customer. This point refers to the issue of conceptual delimitation of SFA and the lack of agreement in theory on what represents

SFA. For this reason, we cared about a common understand-ing of SFA before starting the interview process. The second limitation concerns the adoption of the customer’s perspec-tive. Because we decided to examine SFA benefi ts from the customer’s point of view, it’s obvious that some facets of SFA cannot be perceptible. In fact, the customer could base his or her apprehension of SFA usage and benefi ts on some tangible elements pertaining to computer-assisted sales presentations, the relevance and the personalization degree of sales presenta-tion content, the usage of personal digital assistant to plan calls, the access to a CRM database during the sales call to check market or product information, the degree of infor-mation sharing about customer profi le when the buyer calls the company, and so forth. The third limitation regards the sampling method. As we explained, we go through a cascade process of interviewees’ identifi cation. We can consider that interviewees could sometimes be tempted to communicate their best references which can lead to less objective state-ments. However, because we were looking for SFA benefi ts, we wanted to ensure homogeneity of SFA applications starting by controlling SFA software attributes. Finally, our research belongs to the deterministic stream in terms of examining technology impact. The aim of our research is to identify benefi ts, then we adopted a positive and optimistic approach of SFA/CRM impact. However, technology in general and more specifi cally SFA can also have some negative infl uences on the salesperson, the customer, and the company. Some studies looked at the effect of SFA on salespersons’ stress and turnover (Speier and Venkatesh 2002) or the effect of knowledge sharing on task performance (Haas and Hansen 2005). Information represents power, and sharing it can in-crease salesperson precariousness perception. In addition to that, the usage of SFA can dehumanize business relationships through the automation of different processes. During our interviews, some salespeople and customers underlined this risk. Moreover, while SFA is supposed to relieve salespeople from performing some administrative and support tasks to become more available to customer calls and requests, it increases the time allocated to enter data in the centralized system, to ensure synchronization, and to check electronic mails and market data.

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Documents

The Benefits of Sales Force Automation