Customers’ Perspective on Service Infusion in Industrial Selling

Abstract

Today manufacturing companies often face problems with mature markets, decreasing product sales, increased competition, and threats of imitation (Wise/Baumgatner 1999; Lay et al. 2010). Thus, neither simple product innovations nor the development of outstanding technologies alone guarrantee business success any longer (Davies 2004; Antioco et al. 2008). Traditional manufacturers therfore increasingly follow the trend of service infusion (Brax 2005; Ostrom et al. 2010), which is described as f firm’s “transition, moving from transactional, commoditized product sales to relational service and solution provision” (Kowalkowski et al. 2012, p. 765).