The purpose of this study is to examine how retail salesperson-group fit on customer orientation impacts sales performance. Customer orientation fit will be compared against the amount of customer orientation to answer the question of whether it is better to have higher customer orientation or consistent customer orientation. This study shows that fit with the group's customer orientation is more important than having a high customer orientation; individuals who deviate from the group's customer orientation have lower performance than individuals who fit their group's customer orientation. Although previous research finds that group-level performance is stronger in groups that have consistently high customer orientation, we find that individual sales performance depends on fit with other group members, regardless of the orientation of the group.
Salespeople who have a customer orientation—i.e., those who attempt to learn about and satisfy customer needs—tend to build stronger customer relationships than less customer-oriented salespeople (Boles et al., 2001, Lopez et al., 2005 and Stock and Hoyer, 2005). Those stronger relationships, in turn, lead to increased repeat sales, word-of-mouth referrals, and a more desirable brand image for the selling firm (e.g., Boles et al., 2001). Unfortunately, while some researchers have found a positive link between a customer orientation and performance (e.g., Dunlap et al., 1988 and Swenson and Herche, 1994), many others have failed to find a direct effect between customer orientation and performance (e.g., Franke and Park, 2006). Grizzle's et al (2009) findings help to explain this inconsistency by showing the both the amount and the consistency of a group's customer orientation culture impact customer orientation behaviours and performance. Along the same lines, Ahearne et al. (2010) shows that sales teams which act consistently have better performance. Hence, the consistency of a group impacts the performance of the group. We argue this should be particularly true in a retail context where the behaviours of other salespeople are easily observable.
From the perspective of the salesperson, a consistent group is one in which each salesperson is a good fit with the group. While the findings from Grizzle's et al. (2009) suggest that consistency of customer orientation increases unit level performance, it is not clear whether individual salespeople who have poor fit with their group's customer orientation also have lower performance. For example, if a group has a consistently low customer-orientation, will individual salespeople who have a strong customer orientation perform better than the group because their customer orientation is higher or will they perform worse because they have a poor fit with the group? Conversely, if the majority of a group is consistently customer-oriented, will a single salesperson with a strong sales orientation still receive the performance advantage of the otherwise consistently customer-oriented group? This question is particularly relevant to understanding ‘lone wolves,’ salespeople who purposefully deviate from the group because they believe their own methods are superior to those of the group (Dixon et al., 2003 and Feldman Barr et al., 2005). Lone wolves tend to be highly involved in their sales career (Dixon et al., 2003) and are likely to select the amount of customer orientation shown to be the most effective, even if it does not conform to the group. This raises the question, is it better to have a higher customer-orientation or to be a good fit with the group's customer orientation?
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine how fit between a salesperson's customer orientation and the sales group's customer orientation impacts sales performance. We begin by reviewing relevant customer orientation literature and the extant research on person-group fit. Then, we develop hypotheses examining the effects of fit with the group's customer orientation on individual sales performance, and compare those effects with other measures of customer orientation. After testing these hypotheses, this article concludes with a discussion of the results, theoretical and managerial implications and potential research directions.
