Salesperson-Customer Dyads in the Casino Gaming Industry

Abstract

Corporations spend billions of dollars annually on hiring and training salespeople. Therefore, developing extraordinary relationships between sales and customers is essential to corporate success. To meet the increasing demands of customers within the casino gaming industry, corporations must ensure they pair customers with right salespeople and maximize customer satisfaction and account profitability in return. Considering this industry-wide business problem, the goal of this research is to gain an in-depth understanding of the customer-salesperson relationship. Specifically, with a focus on salesperson competencies, this study explores how customer satisfaction and account profitability are related to the salesperson and customer interpersonal relationships. This study is the first to empirically evaluate customers together with their primary slot machine salespeople. The result indicates salespeople who possess product knowledge, understanding the needs of the customer, honesty, and high communication skills, are essential to customer satisfaction and account profitability.