How Suppliers Affect Trust with Their Customers: The Role of Salesperson Job Satisfaction and Perceived Customer Importance

Abstract

Developing strong trust-based relationships with customers is increasingly important in the business-to-business marketplace, but little is known about the process by which sales managers can influence the relationship-building behaviors of salespeople. We collected data from 93 salesperson-customer dyads to test a model linking salesperson job satisfaction, perceived customer importance, customer-focused helping behaviors, and customer trust in the supplier. Results indicate support for the model: job satisfaction is related to customer-focused helping behavior, perceived customer importance interacts with salesperson job satisfaction to positively affect customer-focused helping behavior, and ultimately customer-focused helping behavior is related to customer trust in supplier.