Relational selling strategy and key account managers’ relational behaviors: an exploratory study

Many companies see key account management as a potentially successful way to implement a relational strategy. Nevertheless, the literature suggests that strategy implementation at the sales force level is difficult to achieve, mainly because sales people may not understand - nor accept - what they are requested to do. Despite their relevance, behaviors of key account managers have poorly be investigated. This article defines and tests a model of relational selling behaviors from the part of key account managers. Results show that the perception of the adoption of a relational selling strategy is associated with some specific key account managers’ behaviors (customer oriented selling, adaptive selling and team selling), but not with others (organizational citizenship behaviors). These findings suggest that potential discrepancies can exist between a relational selling strategy and its implementation at the key account manager level. Based on these results, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.