Nuances of Sales–Service Ambidexterity across Varied Sales Job Types

Abstract

An ambidextrous approach to selling, in which salespeople are concurrently responsible for both selling to and servicing the customer, has become the norm in today's selling organizations. To date, the literature points to a ‘the more, the better’ mentality when it comes to the servicing part of sales–service ambidexterity. However, little is known about the value of servicing across sales jobs with varying demands for selling effort. To address this gap, the authors first propose a more generalizable sales job typology that is based on the amount of effort salespeople are required to invest in selling, that is, sales provision effort (SPe). Second, in two subsequent studies, they show that the value of servicing depends on the type of sales job performed. Interestingly, servicing is less valued among customers in sales encounters with low levels of SPe, while salespeople in such jobs find high demands for servicing to be a welcoming challenge. For managers, this implies the need to find a balance between challenging their salespeople and ensuring effective direction of sales resources towards improvement of customer satisfaction and loyalty.