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In December 2011, Andris A. Zoltners, PK Sinha, and Sally E. Lorimer wrote a provocative article titled "Who Owns Your Customer Relationships: Your Salespeople or Your Company?" The article highlighted the inability of management to control customer strategy, thus undermining the entire strategic objectives of organizations of any size.

“We own the relationships with customers,” say your salespeople. “The company holds us accountable for revenues and expects us to develop and maintain the connections to drive sales. Just pay us our commissions and leave us alone.”

The issue of who owns customers—salespeople or the company—is really a question of who and what the sources of customer value are. In the examples provided, customers perceive the salesperson as the primary value source—the one who listens, assesses needs, provides solutions, and delivers continuing service. However, when the situation changes—due to factors such as customers’ need for more complex solutions, market saturation, new competition, or a broadening product line—a salesperson alone no longer delivers adequate value. These sales organizations can better position themselves for long-term success by adapting their go-to-market approach to create multiple customer value sources.

Since 2011, many organizations' responses to the increasing complexity in managing customers have become more inadequate. With compounding economic restraints within companies, signalled by the organizational death chant “do more with less (or nothing),” companies are still struggling to find a new way. Desperation pervades for a pathway forward to regain control of their alignment and achieve their customer goals.

In most cases, businesses are not able to evolve beyond this point. In fact, many businesses are being placed in a stronger "choke hold," not only because a disproportionate amount of customer execution is in the hands of sales teams, but also due to greater market demands and the broadening scope of sales’ responsibilities. Management is guilty of blindly pushing even more demands on sales to achieve their strategic designs. Given that sales departments are the least trained business professionals, are we not putting too much responsibility in the hands of these individuals? Are we not undermining their effectiveness by diluting their focus on what they are actually good at?

What is the pathway forward?

To start, reflect on:

• Who is responsible for the customer strategy – sales or management?
• Who is responsible for the processes for customer delivery – sales or management?
• Who should determine the customer contact strategy – sales or management?
• As customer data now drives significant customer interaction, do sales or management control the customer data acquisition, data management, and leverage of data to drive business outcomes?

For a confidential discussion on how you can evolve your business, please reach out to us at info@progressive-gtm.com.

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