<p>Through the years customer orientation is an area of marketing that has received much attention. One of the key aspects of customer orientation is the “ability of the salespeople to help their customers”. There has been research on how salesperson’s behavior influences customer orientation. However, previous research has been conducted on the business unit level. At the moment there is no research done on how a salesperson’s individual behavior affects a company’s overall customer orientation. Therefore, this dissertation will try to fill the research gap on how salesperson’s individual behavior affects overall customer orientation.The study is performed on the three major electronic retail stores in the Swedish market. Twelve types of behaviors were selected and were tested with the mystery shopper method and observations of customers in the stores. Two other behaviors of salespeople were discovered. The results show that many of the behaviors described in theories do apply to salesperson’s individual behavior. However, there are some behaviors that are more common than others. The conclusion is that even though there are some common salespeople behaviors, it is very individual how salespeople behave towards customers.</p>

Through the years customer orientation is an area of marketing that has received much attention. One of the key aspects of customer orientation is the “ability of the salespeople to help their customers”. There has been research on how salesperson’s behavior influences customer orientation. However, previous research has been conducted on the business unit level. At the moment there is no research done on how a salesperson’s individual behavior affects a company’s overall customer orientation. Therefore, this dissertation will try to fill the research gap on how salesperson’s individual behavior affects overall customer orientation.The study is performed on the three major electronic retail stores in the Swedish market. Twelve types of behaviors were selected and were tested with the mystery shopper method and observations of customers in the stores. Two other behaviors of salespeople were discovered. The results show that many of the behaviors described in theories do apply to salesperson’s individual behavior. However, there are some behaviors that are more common than others. The conclusion is that even though there are some common salespeople behaviors, it is very individual how salespeople behave towards customers.