B2B online sales pushes: whether, when, and why they enhance sales performance

Business-to-business (B2B) sellers are increasingly transitioning to hybrid sales structures, by augmenting an in-person field sales force with a direct online channel. During this transition, sellers frequently experience a cold-start problem, wherein existing customers are either not acquainted with the online channel or unconvinced of its usefulness and are therefore reluctant to adopt it. To overcome the cold-start problem, B2B sellers are increasingly relying on online sales pushes, which are efforts to encourage salespeople to nudge customers to adopt the online channel for certain buying tasks. Yet, because salespeople may fear that the online channel adoption jeopardizes the very relationships that they painstakingly built, the salespeople's compliance with an online sales push remains unclear. To glean insight into this dilemma, we empirically investigate an online sales push's impact on salesperson effort (re)allocation and sales performance. Based on an econometric analysis of archival data from a B2B seller and a scenario-based experiment, we conclude that salespeople generally tend to comply with an online sales push because it frees up their time and allows them to pursue new selling opportunities that have the potential to increase their compensation. The results also indicate that following an online sales push, salespeople expend their effort based on a customer's online proclivity and potential prior to the push. Moreover, the effort expended varies over time and across communication channels. Additionally, the analysis reveals (a) asymmetric carryover and cross-channel effects of communication effort and sales performance and (b) asymmetric synergistic effects of communication effort on sales performance.