When, And How Salespersons Spend Time With Customers? An Empirical Study of the Quality of Sales Calls, and it’s Impact on Sales Performance

Abstract

Despite so much research happening in the area of sales call planning and salesperson performance, this stream of literature suffers from adequate understanding on how salespersons in the field use various heuristics for allocating their field time for, in determining the two dimensions of calling plan- call frequency, and call length. This research adds to this area of understanding, using in-depth interviews of 18 salespersons who examine the salesperson-customer interactions in different selling situations. This interview data was then subjected to content analysis. Based on the content analysis of the responses from the interviewees, key themes were identified. Based on the relationships between these themes a series of propositions are posited in the paper. The findings of this study suggests that the variance in sales call lengths for different customers depends on various factors such as, past sales, potential sales, customer type/profile, number of decision makers, level of accounts receivable, level of customer relationships, level of customer satisfaction, level of customer involvement, and level of competition in the market. These factors also bring heterogeneity in sales call frequency to different customers. Based on the findings of this study it is suggested that sales managers should give autonomy to their sales force to choose sales call frequency and call lengths, so that they can adapt their calling patterns to customers based on the salience of the above listed factors. Through this research, I also appeal to all sales managers to realize the importance of sales call length, and use it strategically to determine key sales performance outcomes, in a manner similar to sales call frequency.