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The Salesperson’s Role in Crm Success

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The salesperson’s role in CRM success: Exploring the value of salespersons’ mapping of buying centre structure
Prabakar Kothandaraman, William Paterson University, NJ, USA Raj Agnihotri, William Paterson University, NJ, USA* Rolph E. Anderson, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA

Perhaps the most important, yet underutilised resources in customer relationship management are salespeople. Drawing upon literature from social network theory, personal selling, sales management, and industrial buying behaviour, buying centre mapping is proposed as a tool for salespeople to improve customer relationship management (CRM). A framework linking a salesperson’s systematic mapping of buying centre structure to the CRM strategy development and implementation is outlined. Implications for theory and practice are discussed in detail. Keywords Industrial buying, Salespeople, CRM, Social network keywords

Introduction The man who correctly understands how a particular structure works can prevent it from working or make it work differently with much less effort than a man who does not know these things. Bailey (1969, p. 108) Development of marketing strategies and tactics relies heavily on the ability of salespeople to understand buying organisations that they deal with and to bring that knowledge back to disseminate throughout the selling organisation for better customer relationship management (CRM). Managing customer relationships is the focus of successful business-tobusiness marketing in today’s hypercompetitive market environment. CRM can be described as a continuous process to gather and use relevant information that increases understanding of how to profitably manage a seller organisation’s relationships with its current and potential customers (Jayachandran, Sharma, Kaufman & Raman, 2005). Successful CRM strategy development and implementation requires, among other

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