THE BENEFITS OF SALES FORCE AUTOMATION:

A CUSTOMER’S PERSPECTIVE
Othman Boujena, Wesley J. Johnston, and Dwight R. Merunka

This paper examines the benefits of sales force automation from the customer’s perspective within a framework based on
theories from the sales and information systems literature relating to the benefits of the implementation of information
technology. An in-depth study using qualitative research tools is conducted among managers occupying “buyer/logistic”
positions within customer organizations to identify perceived benefits of the use of sales force automation (SFA) systems
by their vendors. Three content analytical techniques (thematic, lexical, and cognitive mapping) are used to uncover the
benefits most valued by management in customer organizations. Results demonstrate that customers perceive benefits
on four main dimensions of their interaction with salespersons—salespeople’s professionalism, customer interaction
frequency, salesperson responsiveness, and salesperson–customer relationship quality. This study is the first to examine
aspects of SFA from the customer perspective.

In competitive markets, success increasingly hinges on the
means of developing and maintaining customer relationships.
Forrester’s Trends in CRM 2009 indicate the importance of
improving customer experience as a critical differentiation
element. The sales environment is changing and firms need a
new vision of the sales function to create more value and to
gain competitive advantage. Consequently, companies invest
heavily in customer relationship management (CRM) software
solutions and especially in sales force automation (SFA) sys-
tems (Widmier, Jackson, and McCabe 2002). In the context
of this research, SFA involves the application of information
technology to support the sales function.
A recent report of AMR Research estimates that customer
management software revenues in 2007 topped $14 billion,
which represents a 12 percent jump over 2006 revenues.
Through their boundary-spanning activities, the sales force
plays a strategic role in building mutually beneficial long-
term customer relationships (Weitz and Bradford 1999).
Experts state that SFA implies remote access of salespeople
to a continually updated centralized database (Parthasarathy
and Sohi 1997). Therefore, SFA, which also represents op-
erational CRM applications in support of selling tasks, has
Othman Boujena (Ph.D., Paul Cézanne University), Associate
Professor of Marketing, Rouen Business School, othman.boujena@
iae-aix.com.
Wesley J. Johnston (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh), CBIM Round-
table Professor of Marketing, J. Mack Robinson College of Business,
Georgia State University, mktwjj@langate.gsu.edu.
Dwight R. Merunka (Ph.D., Paul Cézanne University), Professor
of Marketing, Aix Graduate School of Management, Paul Cézanne
University Aix-Marseilles and EUROMED School of Management,
dwight.merunka@iae-aix.com.
great potential for the collection and dissemination of market
information and the development of value-added customer
relationships (Ahearne et al. 2008; Day 1992).
Early research in the area of SFA focused on issues sur-
rounding the adoption and diffusion of technology (Jelinek et
al. 2006; Jones, Sundaram, and Chin 2002; Rangarajan, Jones,
and Chin 2005; Schillewaert et al. 2005; Speier and Venkatesh
2002), followed by research pertaining to the impact of sales
technology on salespeople’s individual performance (Ahearne
and Schillewaert 2001; Sundaram et al. 2007). In recent years,
the issue of SFA technology benefits has come to the forefront
in trade journals and academic research. Whereas managerial
literature advocates the potential benefits of SFA in terms of
productivity and customer service, more research is needed
to support these assertions. Despite many calls for empirical
research on SFA (Buttle, Ang, and Iriana 2006), empirical
results remain sparse in terms of demonstrating the benefits
associated with SFA adoption and use and the changes related
to the way selling is done (Ahearne et al. 2008; Hunter and
Perreault 2007).
Research mainly concentrates on the benefits of SFA for
managers or salespeople (Ahearne and Schillewaert 2001;
Barnes and Engle 1995), but to our knowledge, no research
has focused on the customer’s perspective. In fact, the customer
point of view is crucial, in that it might reflect the effective and
objective impact of SFA (Ahearne, Srinivasan, and Weinstein
2004; Engle and Barnes 2000; Honeycutt et al. 2005). SFA
is mainly directed at improving sales force productivity and
this process should obviously have an impact on the customer.
For this reason, the way the customer assesses changes in the
operational efficiency of sales meetings and contacts through
skills, competencies, and behaviors of automated salespeople
should be the best evidence of SFA success.

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, vol. XXIX, no. 2 (spring 2009), pp. 137–150.
© 2009 PSE National Educational Foundation. All rights reserved.
ISSN 0885-3134 / 2009 $9.50 + 0.00.
DOI 10.2753/PSS0885-3134290203
138 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
Many calls are made today from research companies such
as Forrester or SFA vendors leaders such as salesforce.com to
focus more on customer-oriented metrics than internal return
on investment (ROI) when measuring the CRM/SFA impact.
Customers expect from salespeople timely and accurate infor-
mation, prompt answers to requests, personalized offers, and
market expertise (Atkinson and Koprowski 2006). Moreover,
Homburg and Rudolf (2001) identified customer satisfaction
toward sales force interaction as the most important dimension
of overall customer satisfaction in industrial settings.
The purpose of this paper is to examine SFA benefits from
the customers’ perspective and within a relationship-building
process. Borrowing from the information systems (IS)/
information technology (IT) and SFA literature, we identify
the types of benefits related to the use of sales technology in
the first part of the paper. We then conduct an exploratory
qualitative study enabling us to uncover the benefits perceived
by buyers using thematic content analysis, lexical analysis, and
cognitive mapping techniques.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
SFA technologies enhance performance by increasing the effi-
ciency and productivity of salespeople and improving both the
quality and quantity of communications among salespersons,
the buying organization, and the selling firm (Colombo 1993;
Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw 1989; Keillor, Bashaw, and Pet-
tijohn 1997; Srinivasan 1985). Brynjolfsson and Yang (1997)
suggest that more than 90 percent of the benefits of computer
capital emerge from otherwise unobserved intangible assets.
Borrowing from IS and sales literature, we identify the most
often-cited benefits of SFA/IT and focus on those that pertain
to salesperson–customer interactions and that are likely to
be perceived by buyers. It appears that SFA affects the sales
function on five main levels:
• productivity,
• information processing,
• communication effectiveness,
• perceived competence, and
• customer relationship quality.
Salesperson Productivity
Generally, SFA is considered to occur when firms computerize
their routine tasks or adopt technological tools to improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of their sales force. One of the main
objectives of SFA applications is to help salespeople better ac-
complish their daily activities. Proponents of technology use
by sales forces have long advocated its potential to increase
productivity (Hitt and Brynjolfsson 1996; Hunter and Per-
reault 2007; Moriarty and Swartz 1989; Wedell and Hempeck
1987). One study suggests relationships among IT use by sales
managers, sales management activity, and sales performance
(Barnes and Engle 1995), and various well-developed models
address the causal relationship between general IT and indi-
vidual performance (DeLone and McLean 1992; Goodhue
and Thompson 1995; Hunter and Perreault 2007).
Regarding effectiveness, Verity (1993) identifies several
benefits from computerization, such as the reduction of errors
common to manual sales processing, reduced support costs,
improved closing rates, and increased average selling prices
as a result of more accurate and timely pricing information.
According to Pullig, Maxham, and Hair (2002), effective SFA
implementation can lead to enhanced productivity through
better customer prospecting, development, and account profil-
ing. A salesperson generally has more and better (e.g., timely,
accurate) information to work with when using SFA tools,
which results in increased capacity to understand customer
needs, provide alternatives, make better decisions, develop
more valuable customer relationships, and improve productiv-
ity (Hill and Swenson 1994). Finally, technology researchers
argue that IT can facilitate data interpretations and analyses
(Huber 1990) and favorably influence personal effectiveness
(Igbaria and Tan 1997).
In addition to enhancing sales effectiveness, Keillor, Bashaw,
and Pettijohn (1997) and Pullig, Maxham, and Hair (2002)
theorize that using technology tools improves salesperson ef-
ficiency. SFA reduces the time spent on administrative tasks
and provides faster access to timely information (Rivers and
Dart 1999). Therefore, SFA tools may enable better territory
management by increasing salespersons’ availability to custom-
ers and more relevant information delivery. Khandpur and
Wevers (1998) indicate that SFA planning functions allow
for downtime identification in the salesperson’s schedule and
then direct new leads to the salesperson during those times.
In addition to that, salespeople can access a centralized SFA
system while traveling and identify the closest accounts to
plan and make their sales calls (Ahearne, Jelinek, and Rapp
2005; Wedell and Hempeck 1987). Also, contact management
tools can enhance salesperson efficiency by enabling contacts
organization based on different criteria (industry, region, po-
tential purchase, etc.). Finally, a company can expect SFA to
deliver faster response times (Gilbert 2004), which is crucial
to improve customer service quality.
Information Processing
SFA applications are designed to improve salesperson ability to
gather, analyze, and share product, customer, and competitor
information. Thanks to centralized CRM database, SFA enable
sales force–facilitated and faster access to a huge amount of
information on products, customer records, competitive offers,
and new leads. Therefore, salespeople can better inform the
customer about product specifications and usage situations

and more accurately fulfill customer needs, and that enables
the company to offer more products and services and perform
more appropriate customer data analyses.
During initial customer contacts, SFA can help salespersons
by allowing them faster access to targeted information, thereby
reducing the time needed to prepare for meeting presenta-
tions, as well as the number of follow-ups when the customer
requests additional information (Taylor 1994). Salespeople
who use technology can sift through customer data and focus
on critical information, putting them in a better position to
demonstrate customer interest and make the sale. For example,
the salesperson can track customer records and then identify
accounts that might be good prospects for cross-selling and
up-selling efforts, as well as those that may no longer remain
profitable (Jayachandran et al. 2005).
Communication Effectiveness
Sales technology applications enhance salespeople’s ability to
communicate clearly and rapidly with customers and contacts
(Hunter and Perreault 2007; Rice and Blair 1984; Sproull
and Kiesler 1986), which improves their responsiveness and
capacity to fit customer needs (Ahearne et al. 2008). For
example, interactive presentation tools enable salespeople to
make more effective comparisons between their products and
competitive offers, to demonstrate a personalized content, and
to provide customer-oriented solutions through automated
sales configurations (Khandpur and Wevers 1998). Along
these lines, Ahearne and Schillewaert (2001) find a positive
effect of IT on sales presentation quality and adaptive selling
behaviors. The effects of SFA also include easier information
exchange due to less communication inhibitions, facilitated
maintaining of customer relationships, and increased com-
munication among geographically distant individuals (Engle
and Barnes 2000). From a company standpoint, the greatest
potential of SFA stems from shared contact information and
increased coordination across the company’s various customer
service functions. Firms that use SFA systems to initiate su-
perior market-sensing and customer-linking capabilities are
in a position to inform and guide internal processes respon-
sible for creating customer value (Pullig, Maxham, and Hair
2002), as well as understand customer needs more easily across
functions. The combined result is a more knowledgeable and
competent sales force and support staff.
Salesperson Competence
Competence, in this research, refers to the customer’s percep-
tion that a salesperson is knowledgeable in areas related to
products, customer needs, and market intelligence (Keillor,
Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997). By increasing both the volume
and the quality of market intelligence and the speed of ac-
Spring 2009 139
cess, SFA increases the perceived competence of salespersons
(Huber 1990). A survey indicates that sales managers believe
information technology influences buyers’ perceptions of
salesperson competency; 90 percent of those surveyed decided
to automate their sales force because it made the salesperson
appear more professional and competent (Colombo 1994;
Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997).
Thanks to SFA, salespeople can review customer purchase
and payment record, prompting them to ask questions that
improve their understanding of existing customer needs and
future requirements. Ahearne and Schillewaert (2000) and
Ahearne et al. (2008) also find positive correlations between
technology usage and market and technical knowledge.
Furthermore, greater access to database knowledge held else-
where in the sales organization can be crucial in helping the
salesperson build customer trust and commitment, as well as
ward off competitors. These arguments all suggest an indirect
effect on customer relationship quality (Park, Holloway, and
Deitz 2005).
Customer Relationship Quality
While previously identified categories are more directly re-
lated to the salesperson, customer relationship quality can be
considered as the outcome category that crystallizes on the
customer side the effect of SFA on sales force abilities and be-
haviors. Customer relationship quality refers to the bundle of
intangible value related to the interchange between buyers and
sellers (Lagace, Dahlstrom, and Gassenheimer 1991) and is
defined as a buyer’s trust in a salesperson and satisfaction with
the relationship (Crosby, Evans, and Cowles 1990). Successful
relationships are characterized by high levels of mutual trust
and commitment between parties (Morgan and Hunt 1994).
Ahearne, Jelinek, and Jones (2007) define “salesperson service
behaviors” such as responsiveness, speed in answering customer
requests, and salesperson diligence, and underline their role in
helping to build satisfaction and trust satisfaction. Concerning
the impact of CRM technology on relationship quality, Hitt
and Brynjolfsson (1996) indicate that overall IT investment
leads to increased customer value, and Fisher (2001) states
that the “people side” of CRM is probably the most important
element. Technological changes can heighten interactions in
terms of time, intensity, and emotions (Kasper-Fuehrer and
Ashkanasy 2001). In a selling context, SFA facilitates the de-
velopment of buyer–seller relationships through its impact on
trust drivers and enhances the buyer’s trust in the salesperson
(Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997). As many as five factors
may increase the potential for buyer–salesperson trust (Hawes,
Mast, and Swan 1989). These include customer orientation,
competency, honesty, dependability, and likability. SFA may
help salespersons in developing customer trust by allowing
them to better demonstrate trust driving behaviors.
140 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
Salespeople customer orientation relies on their ability
to demonstrate customer interest by emphasizing product
benefits, providing solutions to customer problems, and
being readily available when needed. Technology can assist
salespeople as they seek to communicate customer benefits
more effectively through interactive sales presentations putting
the product within a context or situation that is appropriate
for the buyer (Ahearne and Schillewaert 2001). By accessing
databases, the salesperson can retrieve the appropriate informa-
tion that will solve the buyer’s problems with regard to his or
her objectives and constraints. The ability to quickly address
customer problems and questions can increase salesperson
credibility as well as trust in the salesperson. Widely used
technology such as e-mail, fax machines, voice mail, and cel-
lular phones help provide easier access to salespeople, which
enables a customer’s concerns or difficulties to be addressed
more rapidly (Jones, Stevens, and Chonko 2006; Keillor,
Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997).
Dependability involves the buyer’s perception and expec-
tation that the salesperson will keep commitments (Keillor,
Bashaw, and Pettijohn 1997). Dependability contains a poten-
tial relational dimension in a sense that it’s generally developed
over time and with regard to arising situations. SFA contact
management applications, for example, can help a salesperson
recognize, remember, and follow through on commitments
to customers and ensure regular contact. These features allow
the salesperson to keep commitments and enhance regular
contacts with customers—increasing customer perceptions of
the salesperson’s dependability (Keillor, Bashaw, and Pettijohn
1997). Finally, SFA might contribute to customer satisfaction
by enhancing the salesperson’s ability to meet customer expec-
tations. If these qualitative relational outcomes are achieved,
there may be monetary or tangible benefits as market share,
share of category requirements, or turnover. Some evidence
indicates that the implementation of SFA tools leads to higher
revenues due to increased closure rates and higher customer
retention, which stems from enhanced customer satisfaction
(Fisher 1998).
We have identified a range of potential benefits of SFA usage
from the literature. We now wish to both verify the existence
of these benefits and possibly uncover others through field
investigation. We therefore conduct a qualitative exploratory
study with a sample of industrial buyers in contact with sales-
people who use SFA tools.
RESEARCH METHOD
Sample and Data Collection
We conducted a qualitative study through semistructured in-
depth interviews with seven buyers or purchasing managers
from different industries (see Table 1). The saturation principle
based on thematic exhaustiveness and data variability was
adopted to lead the interviewing process (Guest, Bunce, and
Johnson 2006) and the sample size is in line with the levels
required for exploratory qualitative studies (Kuzel 1992). The
buyers were identified through a cascade process during which
we contacted the main SFA vendors who provided us with
companies (sales managers and their salespeople) using their
tools that, in turn, indicated their customers. The interviewed
buyers demonstrate an experience of at least two years with
salespeople and exposure to SFA tools. This period is enough
to reach the SFA implementation process maturity, to know
the salesperson, and, consequently, to better assess SFA benefits
(Engle and Barnes 2000; Geiger and Turley 2006). Participants
were asked to indicate the benefits for them of dealing with
a salesperson using SFA according to the following interview
guide:
• SFA definition: description by the interviewer of tools
and applications to ensure a common understanding
of what SFA means.
• SFA benefits identification: could you tell us what does
SFA change in your interaction with the salesperson?
• Impact on supplier relationship: does this change any-
thing in the perception of your supplier?
Because of the semistructured method, our interviewing
process had a beforehand framework of themes to be explored
but remained flexible to allow new ideas to emerge. To ensure
that the provided benefits are attributed to SFA usage by sup-
pliers’ salespeople (variance source), we asked interviewees to
answer by contrasting with a non- or less-automated salesper-
son. The main objective of this research stage was to assess the
relevance of the identified benefits and uncover new ones.
Interviews were recorded and then transcribed to be content
analyzed using established qualitative data analysis techniques
(Miles and Huberman 1994). The overarching objective of our
investigation was to identify the benefits of SFA perceived by
buyers. For this purpose, we analyzed the interviews’ corpus
using a methodological triangulation—thematic content
analysis, lexical analysis, and cognitive mapping.
Data Analysis
Thematic Content Analysis
Thematic content analysis refers to the process through which
transcribed interviews are dissected into meaningful semantic
units called “themes” or “codes.” These semantic units rep-
resent thematic categories derived from an agreement-based
coding process inspired by our research question. Following
Miles and Huberman (1994), we adopt a two-step coding
procedure. The first step consists of comprehending, syn-
thesizing, and sorting inductive themes both manually and

using the N’Vivo software. In the second step, we refine our
thinking about codes by theorizing and generating meta-
thematic categories that match the themes (nodes for N’Vivo)
and concepts identified in the literature. Our assignment of
themes to meta-categories (see Table 2) is subject to an infer-
ence mode based on their proximity to the definition of the
related concepts (Miles and Huberman 1994). To ensure cod-
ing reliability, interviews were double coded; the agreement
coefficient Cohen’s kappa equals 80 percent.
Lexical Analysis
Here, our objective is to (1) characterize the corpus according
to indicators and statistical measurement and (2) help rapid
understanding of the corpus through lexical approximation.
We focus our attention on the words cited most frequently by
the buyers when they evoke benefits. In Table 3, we provide
some of the key words, which together represent approximately
75 percent of the main words carried in the lexical analysis.
For example, the word “presentation” has been cited 54 times
by customers and represents 17.65 percent of total words
identified in the corpus.
Cognitive Mapping
To gain an in-depth understanding of buyers’ perceptions of
SFA benefits, we conduct a cognitive mapping procedure us-
ing Decision Explorer (version 3.2.0) software (Ackermann
and Eden 2005). The term “cognitive map” was used first by
Tolman (1948) and has since been widely employed in psy-
chological science. In organizational studies, the term traces
back to Axelrod (1976), who uses it to analyze the decisions
of politicians and decision-making bodies. Cognitive mapping
begins at the individual level to represent the cognitions of each
interviewed buyer. We then aggregate the data to produce a
cognitive map of the phenomena under scrutiny at the group
level (all buyers).
Concerning individual cognitive mapping, Langfield-Smith
and Wirth (1992) posit that each cognitive map contains in-
dividual beliefs concerning a particular domain at a point in
time. For our research, cognitive mapping enables us to capture
in detail buyers’ thoughts and ideas about SFA benefits, and
then explore them to gain additional insights. The associated
software generates comprehensive qualitative models through
map building. Because we are interested in identifying the
benefits stemming from SFA usage, we adopt causal mapping
to underline links, following an unstructured method (text
based), to explore the interview corpus and look for causal
indicators. Using the software, we represent the structural rela-
tions between concepts. Similar to a research model, we refer
to every variable as a concept or node, and each arrow refers
to a causal cited relationship (Axelrod 1976). Finally, we draw
Spring 2009 141
Table 1
Sample Characteristics
Company’s Industry Interviewee’s Position
Telecommunications Buying manager
Consulting Buying manager
Consumer goods Wrapping and packaging
buying manager
Cosmetics Buying manager
Manufacturing Buying manager
Consumer goods Buying manager
Retail Logistics and retail manager
individual maps for each buyer and provide an example of a
causal cognitive map with the representation of SFA benefits as
perceived by a particular buyer (Figure 1). To ensure validity,
each interviewee has been shown his or her map and asked if
it accurately reflects the causal relationships mentioned.
Next, we aggregate buyers’ cognitions using average map-
ping to ensure accurate and comprehensive representation
(Bougon, Weick, and Binkhorst 1977; Ford and Hegarty
1984). This collective mapping method consists of generating a
causal composite map that represents the average shared vision
of SFA benefits from the buyers’ perspective. To identify the
average underlined links, we index (for each map) the causal
links mentioned for every pair of concepts in a disjunctive
similarities table. This comparative table represents the relations
between concepts in rows and the statement of interviewees in
columns. The existence of a causal link (intersection), or lack
thereof, in each interviewee’s comments is then binary coded as
1 when the interviewee indicates the relation and 0 when it is
not mentioned (Figure 2). Finally, we operate a topographical
analysis of buyers’ cognitive maps (see Table 4). During this
step, we examine the maps’ structure and organization (Eden,
Ackerman, and Cropper 1992; Weick and Bougon 1986).
RESULTS
The triangulated content analysis of interviews allows (1) the
identification of SFA benefits for the customer, (2) the rank-
ing of these benefits with regard to their importance and
obviousness for customers, and (3) the revelation of value
creation mechanisms of SFA from the customer’s perspective.
According to the meta-categorization process, we obtained
10 meta-thematic categories. Professionalism appears to be
the most important category with an occurrence rate of 23.5
percent. This benefit covers themes such as salesperson image,
argumentation relevance, or salesperson organization. The
second main benefit concerns customer interaction frequency
which represents an occurrence rate of 19.1 percent. It essen-
tially covers critical information exchange with the salesperson
related to product or market knowledge. Responsiveness takes
142 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

Table 2
Generated Meta-Thematic Categories

Themes Meta-Thematic Categories Coding Percent of

(First-Level Coding) (Perceived Benefits) Frequency Total

Salesperson image Professionalism 43 23.5

Argumentation relevance
Professionalism
Salesperson organization
Salesperson relationship
Information exchange Customer interaction frequency 35 19.1
Customer information
Offer knowledge
Responsiveness Responsiveness 30 16.4
Effectiveness
Service
Trendiness Supplier image 27 14.8
Brand image
Corporate image
Trust Customer–supplier relationship 19 10.4
Supplier relationship
Recommendation
Commitment
Satisfaction
Customer knowledge Customer knowledge 9 4.9
Adaptive selling Adaptive selling 7 3.8
Decision-making uncertainty Decision-making uncertainty 5 2.7
Availability Availability 4 2.2
Proactivity Proactivity 4 2.2

Table 3 the third rank and reveals the importance of the contribution
Most Cited Words of SFA to help the salesperson in providing a prompt answer
Citation Percent of Total
to customer requests. We should notice here that those three
Words Frequency Words Identified benefits represent already more than 50 percent of cumulated
occurrence rate. In the same line, lexical analysis results point
Presentation 54 17.65 out that sales presentation is the most cited word when evoking
Customer 25 8.17
SFA benefits (Table 2). Results indicate also that SFA is an
Time 17 5.56
Image 16 5.23 image vector that leads to associations in the minds of custom-
Quality 15 4.9 ers concerning the salesperson, the brand, and the supplier
Response 15 4.9 (Table 1, Figures 1 and 2). For example, customers indicate
Exchange 13 4.25 that equipping salespersons with SFA makes the brand appear
Computers 13 4.25 trendy. The relationship between the customer and supplier
Information 10 3.27
Reporting 10 3.27
is another impact level of SFA. According to customers, the
Sales call 10 3.27 usage of SFA by salespeople contributes to reinforcing the
Management 8 2.61 relationship with the supplier through better satisfaction,
Communication 7 2.29 trust, and commitment. This can lead customers to recom-
Comprehension 6 1.96 mend their supplier on the basis of perceived service quality
Effectiveness 6 1.96
and demonstrated customer orientation.
Commitment 6 1.96
Concerning maps’ topographical analysis, as a source of
benefits, SFA seems to be the central concept in all maps,

Figure 1
Sample Individual Causal Cognitive Map
19
and all described effects start from SFA. As far as structure is
concerned, buyers identify an important number of concepts
(30) related to salespeople productivity and professionalism.
Besides, customers demonstrate an assessment of SFA effects
and value-creation mechanisms by stating more than 100 links
between concepts. Consequently, the density that represents
links to concepts ratio equals 3.36 and means that each concept
(node) holds three links on average.
DISCUSSION
Consistent with our predictions and the statements set forth in
sales and IS theory, the qualitative study’s findings support the
overall assertion that the usage of SFA contributes significantly
to relationship-based selling. Based on the analysis of qualitative
data, we uncover four major SFA perceived benefits: salesperson
professionalism, customer interaction frequency, responsive-
ness, and customer–salesperson relationship quality.
Salesperson Professionalism
Professionalism is the most frequently perceived SFA benefit
from the buyers’ perspective (Table 2, Figures 1 and 2). Ac-
cording to Knoll and Tankersley (1991), professionalism is a
function of three criteria—behavior, salesperson’s image, and
Spring 2009 143
appearance. Many authors also stress the communication
aspect of professionalism (e.g., Jackson, Keith, and Schlacter
1983; Pilling and Eroglu 1994), though professionalism may
also refer to the general behavior of the salesperson.
I think that the personality shows through the presentations.
(Telecommunications)
As a result of their capacities, SFA tools give the sales-
person the means to demonstrate his or her know-how in a
sales context. Several studies have demonstrated the impact
of technology on individual behaviors (e.g., sales presenta-
tion, adaptive selling); for example, Behrman and Perreault
(1982) indicate that well-thought-out and well-done sales
presentations and the ability to work well with customers are
important behavioral dimensions of salesperson performance.
By allowing high-quality product demonstrations and better
graphical visualizations, SFA is likely to enable salespersons
to give clear and effective presentations.
Yes! absolutely, it helps, absolutely because all figures are im-
mediately available. . . . I have seen some presentations with
videos, it’s very nice. (Consumer goods)
More conviviality, it [SFA] illustrates proposals, it al-
lows quick computation, it’s a communication support.
(Manufacturing)
144 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

Figure 2
Buyers’ Average Causal Map

Table 4 By providing access to large amounts of data, SFA enables sales

Topographical Analysis of Cognitive Maps representatives to tailor their sales messages to each customer
Indicators Buyers
(Ahearne and Schillewaert 2001), a form of adaptive selling,
or alter sales approaches across and during customer interac-
Maps’ Structure tions (Spiro and Weitz 1990; Sujan, Weitz, and Sujan 1988). A
Differentiation salesperson supported by automated technology can determine
Number of concepts 30
more easily which products to prioritize during a sales call
Interconnection
Number of links 101 and can customize the sales presentation content accordingly.
Density 3.36 These behaviors can be interpreted as a customer orientation
Maps’ Organization and thereby denote the salesperson’s willingness to care about
Central concept SFA buyers’ needs. Appropriately, the word “customer” frequently
appears in the interviews as a description of SFA advantages.

Ah, exactly proactivity, yeah, uh, proposal strength.

Furthermore, SFA can help salespersons better address cus-
tomer questions through profiling and previous calls records
(Jones, Stevens, and Chonko 2006). These assertions are also
supported by customers’ statements.
According to the lexical analysis results, “presentation” is the
word cited most often by buyers when evoking SFA benefits,
possibly because sales presentations offer one of the most
straightforward witnessed salesperson behaviors. Furthermore,
SFA applications designed to create sales presentations gener-
ally are spread among selling companies, which renders this
feature obvious to all.
As Marshall, Moncrief, and Lassk (1999) report, IT im-
proves the professionalism by which sales calls are prepared.
(Telecommunications)
Finally, though professionalism pertains to the general per-
ceived behavior of salespersons, it also expresses perceptions of
the salesperson’s image. In this sense, customers indicated that
using technology can project a trendy, well-organized image for
the salesperson. They also added that such technological tools
have a structuring effect on salesperson task accomplishment
(e.g., call planning, presentation conception, offer generation,
communication effectiveness), and because the salesperson
is the firm’s external representative, these positive image at-
tributes get transferred to the selling company and its brands
(see buyers’ shared perceptions in Figure 2).

Even if the salesperson is not, if he hasn’t a rationale personal-
ity, . . . this type of applications inevitably forces some rigor.
(Consumer goods)
Customer Interaction Frequency
The second major benefit refers to the concept of customer
interaction frequency (CIF), defined as a means of communica-
tion that reinforces the coordination between partners by diffus-
ing critical information and thereby leads to relationship success
(Crosby, Evans, and Cowles 1990; Lagace, Dahlstrom, and Gas-
senheimer 1991; Mohr and Nevin 1990). Information exchange
plays a crucial role in industrial relations, and one of the main
functions of the sales force is to manage information (Darmon
1993; Moncrief 1986). Due to their boundary-spanning roles,
salespeople represent a valuable source and bridge of informa-
tion for buyers in various areas, including product, market
(Behrman and Perreault 1982), promotion, customer behavior,
and competitor information. By improving the information
processes, IT enables the salesperson to better inform customers
(Grover, Teng, and Cheon 1998; Huber 1990).
There are several [advantages] in fact of technology . . . , it
helps understanding the company with which one deals, if I
ask him to send me the presentation of his company, he will
send me a PowerPoint presentation with turnover, potential
customers, I mean key customers, his know-how and argu-
ments. (Telecommunications)
Specifically, as a result of its storage, retrieval, and network
capacities, SFA facilitates the processes of information col-
lection, analysis, and sharing (Marshall, Moncrief, and Lassk
1999). In other words, SFA offers salespeople an expansive cen-
tralized memory of people and databases with which they may
update their knowledge about business processes (Day 1992;
Parthasarathy and Sohi 1997). The resultant enhanced infor-
mation role of the salesperson gives buyers tremendous help
during the decision-making process, because, as organizational
literature notes, uncertainty reduction is the most important
challenge for decision makers such as buyers. Decision-making
uncertainty is “the difficulty experienced by the decision maker
in predicting the outcomes of a purchase decision in terms
of its likely benefits and costs” (Duncan 1972; Kohli 1989);
therefore, the better informed the salesperson is and the more
information he or she offers the buyer, the more likely the
salesperson can reduce the perceived risks or uncertainty of
the buyer (Henthorne, La Tour, and Williams 1993; Jackson,
Keith, and Burdick 1984; Moriarty and Spekman 1984). As a
relationship-building practice (Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987),
SFA holds the promise of helping customers make effective
decisions (Gao et al. 2002).
The other aspect of CIF deals with communication, or
the channel and format of information diffusion. Electronic
Spring 2009 145
communication media provide access to the database from
anywhere, including in the midst of a sales call, and can com-
municate data in almost any format.
We communicate only by e-mail. (Telecommunications)
What’s important is the quality of the electronic documents
sent. (Consulting)
The final dimension of CIF deals with interaction fre-
quency, which depends on call planning (Sujan, Weitz, and
Kumar 1994). By running specific data queries, salespeople
can list and sort customers to determine their call priorities. By
replacing the calendar, SFA applications enable sales represen-
tatives to manage their time effectively, set up appointments
accurately, and perform sustained planning. Consequently,
buyers are approached by the salesperson as needed and
with appropriate frequency. Calls from salespeople are better
informed, so meetings become more structured and focused
because the object of the call has already been communicated
to the buyer (e.g., by e-mail) and appropriate follow-ups
ensue. As we show in Figure 2, following up with customers
and availability represent key elements for a majority of the
buyers we interviewed.
Salesperson Responsiveness
The information and communication capacities of SFA sys-
tems render salespeople more responsive to and available for
customer requests. Responsiveness has been defined as the
willingness to help customers and provide prompt service
(Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry 1988). As a result of pa-
perless communication, a salesperson can answer customers
in real time and offer a service of good quality (Ahearne et
al. 2008). Our interviews also show that it is important for
buyers to be able to reach the salesperson whenever needed,
which highlights the concept of availability, or the presence of
the salesperson for problem solving during the business cycle
(Cooper, Dröge, and Daugherty 1991), that has been identi-
fied as a meta-category (Table 2). In addition, the adoption of
SFA tools by salespeople should help them concentrate more
on their territory management because it automates their
administrative tasks (Wedell and Hempeck 1987).
Customer–Salesperson Relationship Quality
When customers benefit from SFA through enhanced sales-
person professionalism and interaction quality, relational out-
comes follow. In accordance with Huber’s (1990) theory and
several IT studies, we consider the impact of SFA on customer–
salesperson relationship quality to be indirect (Brynjolfsson
and Yang 1996; Mooney, Gurbaxani, and Kraemer 1996), such
146 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
that it follows from the enhancement of salespersons’ behav-
iors and competence. Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990) state
that salespersons’ knowledge benefits the quality of customer
relationships; furthermore, relational outcomes strengthen
over time and through multiple interactions. Therefore, they
should take place after the relationship development.
It improves the communication with the customer. (Con-
sumer goods)
The average causal map also indicates that in buyers’ minds,
enhanced customer information means greater trust in the
salesperson. In addition, the capacity of salespeople to solve
customers’ problems and help them make effective decisions
because of SFA can lead to trust.
Meanwhile, a high-quality interaction and exchange of
valuable information between SFA-supported salespeople and
customers influences commitment. With regard to satisfaction,
defined as a “customer’s emotional state in response to its evalu-
ation of an interaction with the salesperson” (Crosby, Evans,
and Cowles 1990), Homburg and Rudolph (2001) show that
such interactions provide a crucial dimension of satisfaction
in industrial settings. Thus, SFA tools that help sales forces
better meet customer expectations likely influence customer
satisfaction as well. In support of this claim, the average causal
map in Figure 2 indicates that satisfaction follows customer
knowledge and reliable argumentation.
He is able, based on my previous orders, to propose
me other prices, or other items, or other solutions.
(Telecommunications)
Finally, when a satisfied buyer assesses the relationship with
a supplier’s salesperson positively, he or she is more likely to
recommend the seller to other purchasing professionals.
To summarize, our results indicate that from the customer’s
perspective, SFA is changing the way selling is done by im-
pacting different levels of the sales functions. By enhancing
salesperson professionalism, interaction frequency, and respon-
siveness, SFA leads to a more customer-oriented selling, which
helps to build and develop better customer relationships. Thus,
SFA is a set of applications aimed not only at automating
manual tasks but also at making every customer interaction
an opportunity to increase satisfaction and ensure loyalty.
CONCLUSION
The current research helps in identifying and understanding
how SFA may be beneficial from the customers’ perspective.
It represents an important extension of SFA research which
shows that it is increasingly implemented in line with a
relationship-building approach. Furthermore, most studies on
SFA call for customer-centric research. To explore this topic,
we combine three qualitative methods to gain an in-depth
understanding of buyers’ SFA considerations. Specifically,
we perform a thematic content analysis, a lexical analysis,
and a study of cognition through cognitive causal mapping;
the latter approach has rarely been used in management and
particularly in marketing. Our study of the perceptions of
buyers, especially those that pertain to a domain for which no
research results are available, relies on cognitive mapping to
reveal interviewees’ thoughts, beliefs, and causal interactions.
From a substantive standpoint, our findings indicate that the
main benefits of SFA as perceived by buyers focus on profes-
sionalism, customer interaction frequency, responsiveness, and
relationship quality. These findings coincide with theoretical
models developed in the literature. As in other studies of the
impact of IT, our qualitative results support the existence of
direct effects of SFA on information and communication
processes in sales activities, as well as indirect effects on rela-
tional outcomes.
From a methodological standpoint, this research employs
qualitative methods and could then encourage qualitative
approaches within the sales domain. In addition to that, this
study demonstrates the potential of cognitive mapping to
examine perceptions and to clarify a complex problem that
entails both technology and human interactions.
From a theoretical point of view, this paper provides a quali-
tative examination of SFA benefits that have been organized in
five main levels. It also analyzes the impact of SFA from a cus-
tomer’s perspective, which offers insight into underresearched
and intangible facets of the return on investment on SFA. The
findings show how the effect of SFA on salespersons’ cognition
and behavior results in relational outcomes. Whereas previous
research mainly has studied the impact of SFA in terms of sales
outcomes (e.g., turnover, market share), we reveal its impact on
customer–salesperson relationships, which are crucial because
relationship quality leads to increased purchase and loyalty.
We therefore propose that the impact of SFA on sales should
be studied through a series of mediating variables, some of
which we identify here, such as customer relationship quality.
The exploratory aspect of our study enables us to reveal several
value-creation mechanisms through which SFA usage might
influence customer relationships.
Our results thus suggest additional research to confirm
our exploratory findings and analyze the benefits further,
such as professionalism, image (brand, corporate), interaction
quality, salesperson proactivity, customer decision-making as-
sistance, and relational outcomes. In addition, the analysis of
our qualitative material leads us to identify a set of concepts
(sales presentation, responsiveness, adaptive selling, trust,
commitment) that should be integrated into a research model
and empirically tested to confirm the benefits of SFA from
the customer’s perspective. The next step is naturally to build
and test a comprehensive model of the impact of SFA on cus-

tomer relationship quality and buying behavior. At this level,
our qualitative study allows us to identify some factors that
are critical to the assessment of SFA benefits by customers. In
fact, while interviewing buyers, we noticed that salesperson
familiarity, customer attitude toward IT, and customer usage
level of IT are determinants for SFA benefits perception. Thus,
future studies should integrate these variables as moderators
of the effect of SFA as perceived by buyers. In addition to
this, future research could benefit from taking a sector-based
approach. The mix of relational competencies varies across
industries and the impact of SFA usage on relationship selling
could be partly industry specific.
Finally, from a managerial standpoint, this study sheds
light on new means for evaluating returns and justifying in-
vestments in SFA that go beyond salespersons’ productivity.
Managers should reconsider studying or communicating the
effects of SFA solutions. For example, SFA vendors com-
municate success stories and tend to stress the impact of SFA
solutions on sales and profits to prove the short-term profit-
ability of these systems. Also, many companies invest in SFA
as a matter of blind faith, to align with their competitors, or
to improve salespeople’s productivity.
Our results provide insight on the relationship-building
role of SFA which is probably not considered by research sug-
gesting that up to 70 percent of SFA/CRM projects fail or do
not allow any obvious benefits (Reinartz, Krafft, and Hoyer
2004). The perception of SFA benefits by the customer shows
that the impact of IT on productivity can be channeled in a
profitable way through customer satisfaction improvement.
We believe that firms should move toward an approach of SFA
that involves the customers—the central focus of all marketing
and the key to gain competitive advantage—by considering
the relational consequences of SFA. Communicating clearly
on this focus might improve the acceptance and usage of
SFA solutions by salespersons if they can be convinced of the
positive consequences on customer perceptions, customer re-
lationships, and customer satisfaction, which are important to
them in their everyday challenge to achieve objectives. A recent
study of Hunter and Perreault (2006) underlines the role of
salesperson’s technology orientation in generating performance
under management influence. Also, when evaluating the
contribution of SFA, management should look at customer-
related aspects to measure ROI. These aspects should also be
considered to balance the compensation system.
However, this study does have some limitations. First, al-
though we start by positioning SFA as a part of CRM applica-
tions, our theoretical framework covers a broader approach of
SFA including IT and all sales technologies. The objective was
to identify the main benefits related to salesperson–customer
interaction and that are likely to be perceived by the customer.
This point refers to the issue of conceptual delimitation of
SFA and the lack of agreement in theory on what represents
Spring 2009 147
SFA. For this reason, we cared about a common understand-
ing of SFA before starting the interview process. The second
limitation concerns the adoption of the customer’s perspec-
tive. Because we decided to examine SFA benefits from the
customer’s point of view, it’s obvious that some facets of SFA
cannot be perceptible. In fact, the customer could base his or
her apprehension of SFA usage and benefits on some tangible
elements pertaining to computer-assisted sales presentations,
the relevance and the personalization degree of sales presenta-
tion content, the usage of personal digital assistant to plan
calls, the access to a CRM database during the sales call to
check market or product information, the degree of infor-
mation sharing about customer profile when the buyer calls
the company, and so forth. The third limitation regards the
sampling method. As we explained, we go through a cascade
process of interviewees’ identification. We can consider that
interviewees could sometimes be tempted to communicate
their best references which can lead to less objective state-
ments. However, because we were looking for SFA benefits,
we wanted to ensure homogeneity of SFA applications starting
by controlling SFA software attributes. Finally, our research
belongs to the deterministic stream in terms of examining
technology impact. The aim of our research is to identify
benefits, then we adopted a positive and optimistic approach
of SFA/CRM impact. However, technology in general and
more specifically SFA can also have some negative influences
on the salesperson, the customer, and the company. Some
studies looked at the effect of SFA on salespersons’ stress
and turnover (Speier and Venkatesh 2002) or the effect of
knowledge sharing on task performance (Haas and Hansen
2005). Information represents power, and sharing it can in-
crease salesperson precariousness perception. In addition to
that, the usage of SFA can dehumanize business relationships
through the automation of different processes. During our
interviews, some salespeople and customers underlined this
risk. Moreover, while SFA is supposed to relieve salespeople
from performing some administrative and support tasks to
become more available to customer calls and requests, it
increases the time allocated to enter data in the centralized
system, to ensure synchronization, and to check electronic
mails and market data.
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