Selvice (Sales + Service): Evolution of Frontline Role in a Service-Dominant World
For most who have held a Sales position in the 20th century, one methodology reigned supreme. The methodology was so strong that it was a regular feature in every Sales seminar, training program. It was none other than the ABC (Always be Closing) Methodology. The concept even got featured in the 1992 David Mamet-scripted film, Glengarry Glen Ross. However, the process started to change when the average consumer became smarter with better access to accurate information, and they became more aware of alternative offers. This transparency resulted due to an increase in the convenience offered by service-oriented organizations. The shift from transaction-based selling to interest-based selling meant that customers are increasingly expecting organizations to offer a “single face” when it comes to both selling and customer service activities (Rapp et al. 2017). Evolution in sales processes and selling schemes has mirrored the service shift, changes in customer goals, new buyer and seller capabilities, and an emphasis on customer relationship management practices for decades (Sheth and Sharma 2008).
As organizations started to embrace the new service-centred approach, they started to realize that interest and relationship-based selling resulted in values flowing in both the direction during customer exchange (Vargo and Lusch 2004). In short, blending sales and service activity comes with the potential to generate increased value for both buyers and sellers by reducing or even mitigating the disconnect between supplier and buyer objectives. But this paradigm shift meant that organizations were baffled by how to manage and train their frontline employees to this new approach. One of the options which many organizations resorted to, to embrace the process and increase their frontline productivity was with the adoption of ambidextrous management strategy (Yu, Patterson, and de Ruyter 2013).
The term “Ambidexterity” which means the ability of humans to use both hands equally was first established at an organizational level by Duncan in 1976 to examine the trade-offs between short term vision and long-term new opportunities (Duncan, 1976). The concept has now been extended to frontline strategy as well and their ability to perform various roles as per requirement.
Organizations have to build this level of ambidexterity by trying to ensure Sales and Customer Success teams work in tandem with each other. Hubspot has been a constant advocate of this level of combination through its Inbound Principles.
Some organizations have also considered firm-driven ambidexterity that results in expansion of frontline roles and formal addition of responsibilities and this is mostly Inorganic. The following research paper, however, presents a new form of Ambidexterity which is Organic, that is, dependent on the Market requirement instead of being Firm Centric (Hughes and Ogilvie, 2020). The following diagram explains the concept better.
Organic ambidexterity involves the adaptation of the frontline role at the individual level and an informal alignment of employee behaviours with ecosystem demands. Leveraging service-dominant logic,
organic ambidexterity embraces the broader transitions in the way markets create, perceive, and measure value (Vargo and Lusch 2004).
The concept of Organic Ambidexterity is vague and thus there might be a constant question of how to enable it?
Research (Hughes and Ogilvie, 2020) suggests that we should look at the SalesForce Management techniques and enable it across Macro and Micro levels.
1. Macro-Level — Organization and Manager Level
2. Micro-Level — Individual
At the organizational level, ambidexterity enablement requires setting a strategy for change in organizational structures with planned processes and predictable outcomes. For example, transactional accounts with short-term exchange goals would gain little additional value from extensive contact with a frontline employee and would instead derive value from the ease of ordering, unbundled offerings, fast delivery, and an ultimately lower price than would a consultative customer. So, it lies in identifying the need and reacting to it based on the same.
At a Managerial level, enabling organic ambidexterity stems from Hiring the right kind of employees who are willing to be flexible in their role adoption and then equipping them with the necessary knowledge, training required for engaging in a transaction or interest-based relationship with the customers.
Finally, enabling ambidexterity requires the microlevel capabilities of those individuals pursuing the value alignment and optimization of relationships. Individuals should be quick to identify the type of relationship required with different types of customers for the various list of services offered.
All in all, recognizing ambidexterity is not the winning lottery for organizations but is one of the first steps for having an optimized and efficient frontline deployment. This article aims at helping organizations achieve the same through a Market-driven approach.
References:
1. Douglas E. Hughes and Jessica L. Ogilvie, “When Sales Becomes Service: The Evolution of the Professional Selling Role and an Organic Model of Frontline Ambidexterity”, Journal of Service Research 2020, Vol. 23(1) 22–32
2. Ogilvie, Jessica, Adam Rapp, Daniel G. Bachrach, Ryan Mullins, and Jaron Harvey (2017), “Do Sales and Service Compete? The Impact of Multiple Psychological Climates on Frontline Employee, Performance,” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 37 (1), 11–26.
3. Vargo, Stephen L. and Robert F. Lusch (2004), “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing,” Journal of Marketing, 68 (1), 1–17.
4. Sheth, Jagdish N. and Arun Sharma (2008), “The Impact of the Product to Service Shift in Industrial Markets and the Evolution of the Sales Organization,” Industrial Marketing Management, 37 (3), 260–269.
5. Yu, Ting, Paul G. Patterson, and de Ruyter Ko (2013), “Achieving Service-Sales Ambidexterity,” Journal of Service Research, 16 (1), 52–66.
6. Duncan, R. B. (1976), “The Ambidextrous Organization: Designing Dual Structures for Innovation,” The Management of Organization, 1 (1976), 167–188.
