Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Building effective inside-outside sales rep dyads: A collaboration perspective

  • Original Empirical Research
  • Published:
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Business-to-business (B2B) firms regularly engage in collaborative selling where an outside sales (OS) representative (rep) interfaces with customers and an inside sales (IS) rep supports the OS reps through remote selling. While anecdotal evidence abounds, there is little empirical research examining factors driving successful IS-OS co-selling, as evidenced by objective sales performance. The authors use an organizational behavior lens and theories of shared team experiences and member knowledge diversity to posit that the collaboration experience (length and intensity) and product knowledge diversity affect customer sales outcomes. Further, they unpack how the efficacy of dyadic attributes should be contingent on the length of the customer–firm relationship and the customer’s product need complexity. Using field data and identification strategies suitable to their setting, the authors confirm that an IS–OS dyad’s collaboration experience and product knowledge diversity have a positive effect on customer-level sales outcome. However, they find a nuanced interplay of IS-OS dyadic attributes with customer characteristics. For example, customers with more complex product needs buy more when dyadic collaboration is long or intensive but not when the dyad possesses diverse product knowledge. The conceptual framework and empirical results together enable sales managers to match IS-OS dyads to customers they can serve profitably.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Some firms may convert the traditional outside sales reps (OS) to hybrid reps who do both inside and outside selling (BCG 2021); others may create a separate role of inside sales rep (IS) to specialize in inside selling (Sleep et al., 2020). In the latter case, firms may deploy IS and OS reps in various configurations. For instance, IS and OS reps may sell to different segments of customers (discrete model), IS reps may focus on leads qualification for OS reps (hand-off model) or IS and OS reps may work together during the entire sales stages and post-sales (team model) (Parker 2012; Ryan 2015; Sleep et al., 2020). Our setting is similar to the team model where a dyad of IS and OS reps is designated to serve each customer. The dyad is a special case of team in a general sense, which consists of two individuals.

  2. There is a competing argument that longer-tenured customers may have greater expectations towards the quality of service they receive, and hence are more likely to react to inferior service. We argue that when B2B customers that are interacting with a firm for a long period form realistic expectation of the service quality from the sales reps. Stable relationships tend to make long-tenured customers less likely to react to small service quality deviation. Only when the selling service quality significantly falls below the expectation, long-tenured customers are likely to react; and when they react, they tend to communicate their concerns with the sales reps, allowing sales reps to recover service failure. Therefore, we think this competing argument will not dominate our main argument in our context.

  3. The remaining patterns account for 87% of sales. We test the results when we include all the collaboration patterns in the regression, while still controlling for IS and OS rep fixed effects. The coefficients of IS–OS dyadic characteristics remain similar.

  4. In such approach, the exclusion restriction is met by the non-direct connection between focal agent and two-step away agent (a focal actor and its two-step away peers are not directly connected; a focal dyad and two-step away dyads are not directly connected). Therefore, unobservables that affect the outcome of a focal agent are unlikely to correlate to the characteristics of two-step away agents (instrumental variable) due to the relationship separation. The instrumental relevance is met due to the similarity of the characteristics of a focal dyad and its two-step dyads arising from the closeness (but not direct connection) of their structural relationship (this relevance logic is similar to the use of similar market price as an instrument variable for endogenous price (Petrin and Train, 2010).

References

  • Aarts, H., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2000). Habits as knowledge structures: Automaticity in goal-directed behavior. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 78(1), 53–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ahearne, M., Lam, S. K., Hayati, B., & Kraus, F. (2013). Intrafunctional competitive intelligence & sales performance: A social network perspective. Journal of Marketing, 77(5), 37–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ahearne, M., Mackenzie, S. B., Podsakoff, P. M., Mathieu, J. E., & Lam, S. K. (2010). The role of consensus in sales team performance. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(3), 458–469.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, J. C., Kumar, N., & Narus, J. A. (2007). Value merchants: Demonstrating and documenting superior value in business markets. Harvard Business Press.

  • BCG (2021). There’s no going back to the old B2B sales model. That’s a good thing. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/hybrid-digital-sales-model. Accessed Jan 2023

  • Behrman, D. N., & Perreault, W. D., Jr. (1984). A role stress model of the performance and satisfaction of industrial salespersons. Journal of Marketing, 48(4), 9–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boaz, N., Murnane, J., & Nuffer, K. (2010). The basics of business-to-business sales success. McKinsey Quarterly, 2010(May), 1–3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bolander, W., Dugan, R., & Jones, E. (2017). Time, change, and longitudinally emergent conditions: Understanding and applying longitudinal growth modeling in sales research. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 37(2), 153–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chan, T. Y., Li, J., & Pierce, L. (2014). Learning from peers: Knowledge transfer and sales force productivity growth. Marketing Science, 33(4), 463–484.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cho, T. S., Hambrick, D. C., & Chen, M. (1994). Effects of top management team characteristics on competitive behaviors of firms. Academy of Management Proceedings, 1994(1), 12–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dahlin, K. B., Weingart, L. R., & Hinds, P. J. (2005). Team diversity and information use. Academy of Management Journal, 48(6), 1107–1123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dawes, J. (2009). The effect of service price increases on customer retention: The moderating role of customer tenure and relationship breadth. Journal of Service Research, 11(3), 232–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Giorgi, G., Pellizzari, M., & Redaelli, S. (2010). Identification of social interactions through partially overlapping peer groups. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2(2), 241–275.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dooley, R. S., & Fryxell, G. E. (1999). Attaining decision quality and commitment from dissent: The moderating effects of loyalty and competence in strategic decision-making teams. Academy of Management Journal, 42(4), 389–402.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dugosh, K. L., & Paulus, P. B. (2005). Cognitive and social comparison processes in brainstorming. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41(3), 313–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eizenberg, A. (2016). Estimating the impact of interacting with sales representatives on customer-specific revenue and churn behavior. Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 14(4), 325–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Espinosa, J. A., Slaughter, S. A., Kraut, R. E., & Herbsleb, J. D. (2007). Familiarity, complexity, and team performance in geographically distributed software development. Organization Science, 18(4), 613–630.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gardner, H. K., Gino, F., & Staats, B. R. (2012). Dynamically integrating knowledge in teams: Transforming resources into performance. Academy of Management Journal, 55(4), 998–1022.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilson, L. L., & Shalley, C. E. (2004). A little creativity goes a long way: An examination of teams’ engagement in creative processes. Journal of Management, 30(4), 453–470.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gonzalez, G. R., Claro, D. P. & Palmatier, R. W.(2014). Synergistic effects of relationship managers’ social networks on sales performance. Journal of Marketing, 78(1):76-94.

  • Goodman, P. S., & Leyden, D. P. (1991). Familiarity and group productivity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(4), 578–586.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, D. A., Price, K. H., Gavin, J. H., & Florey, A. T. (2002). Time, teams, and task performance: Changing effects of surface-and deep-level diversity on group functioning. Academy of Management Journal, 45(5), 1029–1045.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, D. A., Mohammed, S., McGrath, J. E., Florey, A. T., & Vanderstoep, S. W. (2003). Time matters in team performance: Effects of member familiarity, entrainment, and task discontinuity on speed and quality. Personnel Psychology, 56(3), 633–669.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, S. (2013). A different perspective: The multiple effects of deep level diversity on group creativity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(5), 822–832.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hinsz, V. B., Tindale, R. S., & Vollrath, D. A. (1997). The emerging conceptualization of groups as information processors. Psychological Bulletin, 121(1), 43–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoever, I. J., Zhou, J., & van Knippenberg, D. (2018). Different strokes for different teams: The contingent effects of positive and negative feedback on the creativity of informationally homogeneous and diverse teams. Academy of Management Journal, 61(6), 2159–2181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hohenberg, S., & Homburg, C. (2019). Enhancing innovation commercialization through supervisor-sales rep fit. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(4), 681–701.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hollingshead, A. B. (2001). Cognitive interdependence and convergent expectations in transactive memory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(6), 1080–1089.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horwitz, S. K., & Horwitz, I. B. (2007). The effects of team diversity on team outcomes: A meta-analytic review of team demography. Journal of Management, 33(6), 987–1015.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huckman, R., & Staats, B. (2013). The hidden benefits of keeping teams intact. Harvard Business Review, 91(12), 27–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Humphrey, S. E., Morgeson, F. P., & Mannor, M. J. (2009). Developing a theory of the strategic core of teams: A role composition model of team performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(1), 48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jehn, K. A., Northcraft, G. B., & Neale, M. A. (1999). Why differences make a difference: A field study of diversity, conflict and performance in workgroups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(4), 741–763.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, C. W. (2012). Combatting managerial complacency in space missions. ESA Special Publication, 699, 25–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joshi, A., & Roh, H. (2009). The role of context in work team diversity research: A meta-analytic review. Academy of Management Journal, 52(3), 599–627.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, M., Sudhir, K., Uetake, K., & Canales, R. (2019). When salespeople manage customer relationships: Multidimensional incentives and private information. Journal of Marketing Research, 56(5), 749–766.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kor, Y. Y. (2006). Direct and interaction effects of top management team and board compositions on R&D investment strategy. Strategic Management Journal, 27(11), 1081–1099.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lai, C. J., & Yang, Y. (2017). The role of formal information sharing in key account team effectiveness: Does informal control matter and when? Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 37(4), 313–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lassk, F. G., & Shepherd, C. D. (2013). Exploring the relationship between emotional intelligence and salesperson creativity. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 33(1), 25–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, K., Lange, D., & Gillis, L. (2005). Transactive memory systems, learning, and learning transfer. Organization Science, 16(6), 581–598.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luciano, M. M., Bartels, A., D’Innocenzo, L. L., Maynard, M. T., & Mathieu, J. E. (2018). Shared team experiences and team effectiveness: Unpacking the contingent effects of entrained rhythms and task characteristics. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1403–1430.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mallapragada, G., Gupta, A., & Josephson, B. (2022). The impact of social capital and transaction efficacy on salesperson performance. Production and Operations Management, 31(9), 3525–3542.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mariadoss, B. J., Milewicz, C., Lee, S., & Sahaym, A. (2014). Salesperson competitive intelligence and performance: The role of product knowledge and sales force automation usage. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(1), 136–145.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKinsey (2022). The future of B2B sales is hybrid. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-future-of-b2b-sales-is-hybrid. Accessed Jan 2023

  • Menguc, B., Auh, S., Katsikeas, C. S., & Jung, Y. S. (2016). When does (mis) fit in customer orientation matter for frontline employees’ job satisfaction and performance? Journal of Marketing, 80(1), 65–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mullins, R., & Syam, N. (2014). Manager-salesperson congruence in customer orientation and job outcomes: The bright and dark sides of leadership in aligning values. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 34(3), 188–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Narayandas, D. (1998). WESCO distribution, Inc. Harvard Business School Case, 598–021, November 1997. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=20247

  • Palmatier, R. W., Scheer, L. K., & Steenkamp, J. E. M. (2007). Customer loyalty to whom? managing the benefits and risks of salesperson-owned loyalty. Journal of Marketing Research, 44(2), 185–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parker, M. (2012). How to Pair Inside & Outside Sales Reps? accessed January 2023 at https://smallbusiness.chron.com/pair-inside-outside-sales-reps-40846.html

  • Petrin, A., & Train, K. (2010). A control function approach to endogeneity in consumer choice models. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(1), 3–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, S. (2015). Building a paired inside/outside coverage model. https://www.alexandergroup.com/insights/building-a-paired-inside-outside-coverage-model/. Accessed Feb 2021

  • Schmitz, C., & Ganesan, S. (2014). Managing customer and organizational complexity in sales organizations. Journal of Marketing, 78(6), 59–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmitz, C., Lee, Y., & Lilien, G. L. (2014). Cross-selling performance in complex selling contexts: An examination of supervisory-and compensation-based controls. Journal of Marketing, 78(3), 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shi, H., Grewal, R., & Sridhar, H. (2021). Organizational herding in advertising spending disclosures: Evidence and mechanisms. Journal of Marketing Research, 58(3), 515–538.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shi, H., Sridhar, S., Grewal, R., & Lilien, G. L. (2017). Sales representative departures and customer reassignment strategies in business-to-business markets. Journal of Marketing, 81(2), 25–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singh, J., Marinova, D., & Brown, S. P. (2012). Boundary work and customer connectivity in b2b front lines. Edward Elgar Publishing, Northampton.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sinkula, J. M. (1994). Market information processing and organizational learning. Journal of Marketing, 58(1), 35–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sleep, S., Bharadwaj, S., & Lam, S. K. (2015). Walking a tightrope: The joint impact of customer and within-firm boundary spanning activities on perceived customer satisfaction and team performance. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(4), 472–489.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sleep, S., Dixon, A. L., DeCarlo, T., & Lam, S. K. (2020). The business-to-business inside sales force: Roles, configurations and research agenda. European Journal of Marketing, 54(5), 1025–1060.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sridhar, S., Mantrala, M. K., Naik, P. A., & Thorson, E. (2011). Dynamic marketing budgeting for platform firms: Theory, evidence, and application. Journal of Marketing Research, 48(6), 929–943.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stasser, G., & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision making: Biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(6), 1467–1478.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strutton, D., & Pelton, L. E. (1998). Effects of ingratiation on lateral relationship quality within sales team settings. Journal of Business Research, 43(1), 1–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Szymanski, D. M. (1988). Determinants of selling effectiveness: The importance of declarative knowledge to the personal selling concept. Journal of Marketing, 52(1), 64–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tasheva, S., & Hillman, A. J. (2019). Integrating diversity at different levels: Multilevel human capital, social capital, and demographic diversity and their implications for team effectiveness. Academy of Management Review, 44(4), 746–765.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, A., & Greve, H. R. (2006). Superman or the fantastic four? knowledge combination and experience in innovative teams. Academy of Management Journal, 49(4), 723–740.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, K. Y., & O’Reilly, C. A., III. (1998). Demography and diversity in organizations: A review of 40 years of research. Research in Organizational Behavior, 20, 77–140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Workman, J. P., Homburg, C., & Jensen, O. (2003). Intraorganizational determinants of key account management effectiveness. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 31(1), 3–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, Z., Wang, M. O., & Shi, J. (2012). Leader-follower congruence in proactive personality and work outcomes: The mediating role of leader-member exchange. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), 111–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zoltners, A. A., Sinha, P. K., & Lorimer, S. E. (2012). Structuring the sales force for customer and company success. In D. W. Cravens, K. L. Meunier-FitzHugh, & N. F. Piercy (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of strategic sales and sales management. OUP Oxford, pp 113–173.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, 210 Olsen Blvd, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Huanhuan Shi & Shrihari Sridhar

  2. Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 300 Kenan Center Drive, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Rajdeep Grewal

Authors
  1. Huanhuan Shi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Shrihari Sridhar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Rajdeep Grewal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shrihari Sridhar.

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of Interest

We, as the authors of this manuscript, declare that we have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Publisher's note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Satish Jayachandran served as Area Editor for this article.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Shi, H., Sridhar, S. & Grewal, R. Building effective inside-outside sales rep dyads: A collaboration perspective. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 52, 835–858 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-023-00960-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-023-00960-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation