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Adaptive Selling

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„Adaptive Selling“

Table of Contents List of figures III Relevance of adaptive selling for marketing 1
1 Central concepts in the context of adaptive selling 3
2 Analysis of the research progress regarding adaptive selling 5 Bibliography 16

List of figures

Fig. 1: Conceptual framework of Román and Iacobucci……………………………………7

Relevance of adaptive selling for marketing

Since the 1970s, researchers are trying to understand the various determinants, antecedents and consequences of adaptive selling. It all began with the perception of personal selling as a dyadic sales process (Spiro 1976). This process is determined by a continuous reflection and consideration of the progress …show more content…

In 1976 Spiro, Perreault and Reynolds described the sales interaction as a process that is governed by the buyer and the salesman. If their expectations and needs differ, the seller has to revise his sales objectives and strategy in order to adapt to the respective situation. In 1978, Weitz presented the ISTEA model, introducing a so-called adjustment stage, giving the salesperson the possibility to alter his way to communicate the marketing message several times during the sales interaction based on his evaluation of the customer’s reaction. Building on this insights, Weitz, Sujan and Sujan defined adaptive selling as “the altering of sales behaviors during customer interaction or across customer reactions based on perceived information about the nature of the selling situation” (1986, p. 175). Thus, a salesman who varies his sales presentation regularly engages highly in adaptive selling. A salesman that, on the contrary, uses the same sales presentation all the time shows no engagement.

2.2 Adaptive selling confidence and adaptive selling behaviour
The ADAPTS scale defined by Spiro and Weitz was the first scale determined to measure the predisposition of salespeople to use adaptive selling. Over the course of time, various scientists and scholars followed Spiro’s and Weitz’ call to continue research on this issue. Thereby,

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