The Effects Of Communication Style (mis)fit On Key Account Managers' Sales Performance

As an essential element of sales communication,communication style plays a substantial role in determining buyer-seller relationships,the effectiveness of sales interactions,and the sales performance.Researchers have examined communication style in both business-to-consumer(B2C)and business-to-business(B2B)contexts.In the B2 C context,researches on communication style have been prolific in the areas of insurance sales encounters,business services,e-commerce,and retail selling.While,in the B2 B context,research on communication style is conducted in both personal selling,and marketing channel negotiations.Despite fruitful studies in literature,a close examination of B2 B communication style research reveals three major deficiencies.First,extant research on communication style in the B2 B context seems to focus separately on the seller and the buyer perspective with little intersection.They only examine characteristics of communication style from unilateral perspective,that is,either the seller's or the buyer's point of view,irrespective of the seller's or the buyer's partner's communication style characteristics.Because communication style is a significant variable in the dyadic buyer-seller relationship,the mismatch of the dyad's communication style interaction will result in dysfunctional outcomes such as defensive psychological climate,sales interaction inefficiency,and lower sales outcomes.In particular,a successful salesperson is one who can identify customer's communication style and adapt his or her communication style appropriately to interact with the customer.As such,it is essential to consider the impact of communication style fit on the buyer-seller dyad's relationship by investigating the dyad's communication styles simultaneously.However,researches on both buyer and its seller communication style seem to run parallel to each other,without looking into the dyadic situation whether the seller's and the buyer's communication styles match or not.Second,as a typical part of sales function,key account managers(KAMs)play a unique boundary spanner role in developing long term relationship with customers.Communication between a KAM and the key customers is the lifeblood of the good relationships.Unlike traditional sales personnel,KAMs should be able to adapt their management approach and value delivery to provide optimum synergy with that customer,involving adapting their communication approach to suit these different audiences.Prior studies on KAMs have examined various aspects of communication,such as communication quality,communication frequency,communication informality,bi-directionality and content,adaptive communication ability,communication effectiveness,and firm-internal communication.While,communication style has received little attention from researchers in the realm of key account management,neither did the study on the match of a KAM's communication style with that of a corresponding customer.Third,the communication style research in B2 B exchange overlooked important product and relationship contingencies.These exchange specific conditions provide important boundary settings for the effectiveness of KAM-customer interaction and communication.In the B2 B context,studies have found that,the governance mode(contractual or relational)of an exchange relationship form the organizational context which decide the success of key account management programs.As well,under a supplier's product variety strategy,product complexity is linked to either deteriorated performance or sales growth,suggesting product characteristics as potential boundary conditions in interfirm exchange.Although researchers have studied the moderating role of firm characteristics such as seller firm uncertainty,none has empirically explored relationship governance or product characteristics as potential boundary conditions.Borrowing person-environment(PE)fit theory as the theoretical lens,this study examines how a KAM's communication style relative to the communication style of the corresponding purchasing manager(PM),that is,communication style fit or misfit,influences relationship outcomes(i.e.relationship quality and sales performance).Here,we define communication style(mis)fit as the degree of(in)consistency or(mis)match between the KAM's communication style and the PM's communication style.Moreover,we identify and investigate how product characteristics and relationship governance moderate the impact of communication style(mis)fit on relationship outcomes.As such,this study makes three contributions.First,it integrates communication style research that conduct separately on the seller and the buyer through an examination of communication style(mis)fit between the KAM and the PM,and explores how communication style(mis)fit influences relationship quality and sales performance.Second,through scrutinizing boundary conditions(i.e.product characteristics and relationship governance),we illuminate the importance of adapting communication style to suit exchange-specific context.Third,our study contributes to key account management literature by exploring how communication styles between the KAM and the PM drive relationship quality and sales performance.To our knowledge,this is the one of the first study that investigates the KAM-PM fit in communication style.Therefore,it also provides important managerial implications for B2 B communication literature and key account management practices.