Alexander Schagen

The purpose of this teaching case study is to analyze, conceptualize and redesign sales approaches with the example of a German wire company selling in the US market. This is a case-based research paper that describes in detail successful sales channel redesign in a business-to-business context. The case study shows the significant advantages of systematic research and optimization of sales channels. The potentials of the wire group in the USA were not utilized because only rough estimates of the US market existed. The new concept bears many advantages: important customers and important regions are covered by their own salesforce. There is a scarcity of published work in the case-based research area. This work provides an understanding of sales channel redesign for business and industrial markets in the USA. The findings of the case have tangible implications for those business companies whose sales channels operate in huge markets with limited resources. The case adds value in sales channel management and supports companies in systematic sales channel redesign in business and industrial markets. Students will benefit from the systematic development of practical solutions in sales management.

The aim of our study is to create a typology of inbound center quality. An analysis of six cross-industry case studies showed that company strategy and value creation characterise four inbound center types. We then examine drivers of inbound center quality via two experiments with Swiss International Air Lines customers. The findings propose that the quality of response time, communication, and compensation are drivers for customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and repurchase intention. However, voluntary compensations decrease the impact of response time quality and communication quality on customer satisfaction. The experiments highlight differences between 12 experiment groups with moderator effects.