Examining the influence of usage of sales technology on relational outcomes through customer oriented behaviour

Adoption of sales technology by salespeople is increasing due to changes in the practice of personal selling. A Customer oriented approach requires salespeople to identify customer needs and offer suitable products. The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically validate a theoretical model which assesses the influence of sales force technology on salesperson customer orientation and their ability to build and maintain customer relationship in banking and financial service context. The proposed theoretical model was validated by using responses from 328 sales people engaged in selling financial products and services. The results indicated that sales technology impacts relational outcomes through the effect of customer orientation explaining 47% of variance. The research draws managerial attention on indirect influence of technology in personal selling on the ability of salespeople to develop and maintain customer relationships through customer oriented behaviours. The study addresses the research gap on examining the influence of sales technology on salesperson's customer orientation from users’ perspective in an emerging market. The study offers a theoretical perspective which could be explored in other selling contexts.