Supporting customer intimacy through the sales function´s service-dominant orientation : Case-study in a B2B manufacturing company

Abstract

A growing number of companies operating in the B2B manufacturing sector aim at gaining competitive advantage and improving their customer relationship by increasing the share of service in their offerings. Service-dominant orientation and way of acting requires different capabilities from a company and its sales function to sell and nurture long-term customer relationships compared to a goods-centric business approach. This is because the value co-creation with the customers is in the heart of service-dominant acting. The objective of the research is to investigate how the service-dominant orientation of the sales function supports customer intimacy in a company operating in the B2B manufacturing sector by researching the role of service in the company offerings. In addition, the research aims at investigating how adding service aspects to the offerings influences the capabilities required from the sales function to pursue value co-creation with customers and to maintain customer relationships.

The research strategy employed is a qualitative, case-study research. The research was conducted in the Finnish division of an international B2B manufacturing company. The research approach is abductive. The theory, mainly based on scientific articles and previous researches, was constructed first, and it was utilized in the devising of the semi-structured interviews employed to collect the empirical data. The empirical findings disclose that the sales function perceives service as a process, and that a flowing service process is a source of competitive advantage for a company. Offerings are perceived as a combination of a physical good and service, an efficient delivery of which is executed through an efficient service process enabled and supported by the service-dominant orientation of the sales function and the related capabilities and a functional collaboration with various actors involved in the service process. The intangible value derived from the positive service process experience is perceived as significant to customers as the monetary value derived from a physical good. However, a good service cannot compensate a mal-functioning product in value. The service-dominant orientation of the sales function is perceived to support close customer relationships based on mutual trust.

It can be concluded that the role of service-dominant orientation and acting is increasing in the B2B manufacturing sector. Instead of merely selling physical products, sales people are increasingly selling holistic product-service solutions. Thus, in addition to the industry-specific know-how, mindset and values that support service-dominant orientation, sales people are required to have capabilities that support consultative solution selling. The sales function´s service-dominant orientation can be concluded to support customer intimacy, according to which a customer relationship is perceived as a partnership based on mutual trust and value-co-creation. Nevertheless, if the overall company culture and processes do not support service-dominant orientation, the lack of them can cause challenges for the sales function´s efforts to pursue service-dominant acting that supports customer intimacy.