When do customers perceive customer centricity? The role of a firm’s and salespeople’s customer orientation

Abstract

The concept of customer centricity is frequently debated by sales and marketing researchers and practitioners. However, to date no validated scale exists that measures to what extent customers perceive companies as customer centric. Against this backdrop, drawing on prior literature, qualitative interviews, and a customer survey (N = 246), the authors develop and validate a measurement scale for perceived customer centricity. In addition, using matched survey and financial data from industrial customers (N = 1,089), the authors examine antecedents and consequences of perceived customer centricity. Results show that customers perceive firms as customer centric if the supplier is customer oriented on both the overall firm level and the salesperson level. Furthermore, perceived customer centricity is strongly linked to customers’ loyalty intentions and objective sales revenue, particularly if customers perceive a firm to exhibit high prices. Thus, this article equips managers with a validated and easy-to-use measurement that allows monitoring a firm’s progress toward customer centricity.