The Effects of Sales Representatives on Customer Satisfaction in Logistics Service Industry

Abstract

Logistics Service Providers (LSP) are companies that provide services as transportation, warehousing, handling, circulation and processing, delivery and information technology to other companies. Their industry has experienced an exponential growth worldwide, challenging their management to deliver solid value propositions to increasingly demanding customers, this is a task usually delivered by sales representatives, as they are the link between the customers and the company. Nicaragua has been chosen to be the place of study of this paper is because there is no similar study in the country that could provide important information about LSPs, thus it is inferred that their sales strategies are empirical, with a poor knowledge of their customer behavior and their decision making process. This study focuses on investigate the impact of: sales representative trust, commitment to the sales representative, sales representative´s consultative selling behavior and relational selling behavior in a customer´s satisfaction. The data recollection was made by applying 200 questionnaires distributed to LSP´s customers in Nicaragua, this information was later analyze with SPSS and AMOS. The results of this thesis demonstrate a positive relationship between the 4 independent variables: customer trust, customer commitment, consultative selling behavior and relational selling behavior with the dependent variable customer satisfaction.