Effects of Customer Orientation and Sales Orientation on Objective Performance:

Abstract

: This paper empirically examined to what extent customer orientation and selling orientation affect objective criteria (the average customer spend and the number of sold customers) at both the individual and group level. The data of 1,572 salespersons from 391 stores in a Japanese apparel chain revealed that the two orientations had different effects on objective performance. That is, customer orientation significantly affected the average customer spend, while no significant relationship was found on the number of sold customers. In contrast, selling orientation had an effect on the number of sold customers but not on the average customer spend. In addition, there was a group effect but almost no individual effect of selling orientation. On the contrary, customer orientation had a stronger individual effect than a group effect. From these facts, it is concluded that the mechanisms responsible for these orientations impacting performance are not the same.