Customer-Oriented Selling: A Review,Extension, and Directions for Future Research

As customer-relationship selling continues to emerge as a significant selling strategy, the role of customer-oriented selling takes on added significance. The personal selling relationship literature lacks a comprehensive review that summarizes and organizes the empirical research regarding customer-oriented selling. Subsequently, it is unclear what exactly has been learned by research on customer-oriented selling and what questions remain to be answered. Therefore, this paper addresses these concerns by reviewing the current literature in customer-oriented selling, offering propositions to extend our understanding, providing directions for developing a customer-oriented sales force based on our current understanding, and offering suggestions for future research.