Sales-service interface on a team level: How inclusion of service employees in a sales team influences customer satisfaction

Customers find deployment and post-deployment activities very important in their buying process, while salespeople do not always address these activities in the sales process. A siloed understanding of the sales process and post-purchase activities may lead to customer dissatisfaction. The hypotheses proposed for this experimental design study suggest that presence of service employees in a sales team (team level sales-service interface) influences customer satisfaction. In line with expectation disconfirmation and promise theories, service employees should be involved early in the sales process to set clear customer expectations and be aware of promises made by sales people since they will be responsible for keeping them.