All Reports
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How Should Firms Onboard New Salespeople? The Relative Efficacy of Centralized Versus On-the-Job Training
Aug 2, 2019 Michael Ahearne, Phillip Wiseman, Zachary Hall, and Seshadri Tirunillai, 2019, 19-125-08Digitally supported on-the-job training can offer cost savings over centralized training programs, and this quasi-experiment finds that such programs can improve performance as well – if the sales manager has the bandwidth to provide guidance early on in a new hire’s tenure.
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The Impact of Device Used in Digital Paths on Deadline-Driven Purchase Decisions
Aug 1, 2019 Meheli Basu, J. Jeffrey Inman, and Kirk Wakefield, 2019, 19-124-08Based on three years of StubHub data, this study shows higher conversion rates for PC-only than for mobile-only consumer path. Device-switching spells trouble for purchase likelihood, but higher sales per transaction. One thing's for certain: as channels and devices evolve, marketing optimization is a moving target.
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Selling in the Digital Age
Jul 16, 2019 Michael Ahearne, Zachary Hall, Partha Krishnamurthy, and Mohsen Pourmasoudi, 2019, 19-123-07Today, thanks to the internet, many people know a lot about what they want to buy. What happens when they encounter salespeople whose approaches assume that they are uninformed, uncertain, and undecided? Data from 356 sales encounters shows a drop in purchase likelihood, sales revenue, and customer satisfaction when salespeople deploy "classic" sales models.
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The Causal Effect of Service Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty
Jul 8, 2019 Guofang Huang and K. Sudhir, 2019, 19-122-07What is the real value of customer satisfaction and loyalty? The authors use an instrumental variables approach to overcome common methods bias and measurement error. They find that firms may be underestimating the gains in customer lifetime value from improving service satisfaction.
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Not All Debt Is Created Equal: On the Mental Accounting of Debt Forms
Jun 26, 2019 Eesha Sharma, Stephanie Tully, and Cynthia Cryder, 2019, 19-121-06Using real-world data and lab studies, researchers demonstrate that consumers are less likely to think of credit (versus loans) as "money to be repaid" rather than "money to be spent." These mental representations are consequential - they influence consumer willingness to incur debt and concerns about repaying.