The effect of trust on customer contact personnel strategic behavior and sales performance in a service environment

The involvement of customer contact personnel in the strategy process is a largely unexplored area in both marketing and strategic management. Based on social exchange theory, and in particular, the notion of trust within this context, we examine the nature and extent of strategy participation exhibited by customer contact personnel. Exploring dyadic relationships we found that the extent to which contact personnel trust their supervisors positively influence their willingness to participate in strategic activities. Furthermore, we found that communication and information sharing moderate the relationship between trust and strategic activities. Thus, the more contact personnel are involved in the strategic process, the more likely supervisors are to rate the contact person's selling performance as high.