In the spectator sport industry, high levels of attendance leads to increased media coverage, consumer demand and sponsor interest. However, during the 1997–98 season, 61.1% of teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) reported flat or declining attendance compared to the previous season (Howard, 1999). These numbers suggest professional sport organizations will face an increasingly difficult task of recruiting and retaining corporate sponsors. In response to this dilemma, a conceptual framework outlining a corporate sales process, “eduselling”, was introduced to assist corporate sales managers with the retention of corporate customers (Sutton, Lachowetz, & Clark, 2000). The framework is a nine-step sales process that begins with prospect identification, continues with relationship building and customer education, allows for the prospect to “test” the product and completes the process with an annual evaluation. The purpose of this exploratory study was to test the validity of the “eduselling” process and to identify those corporate sales activities that lead to higher rates of retention of corporate customers. Twenty-nine teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) were mailed a 40-item survey instrument. Twenty-six teams returned the surveys. Four surveys were excluded from the analysis resulting in a return rate of 75.8%. Teams provided corporate customer retention rates for the 1998–99, 1999–00 and 2000–01 seasons. In addition, Likert scale items asked respondents “to what degree” they “practice” or “agree/disagree” with statements related to the nine-step sales process. Finally, descriptive data were collected from each team. The average retention rate across the league was 85.73% with a range of 71% to 96%. This resulted in each of the 22 teams being categorized in one of three groups. To group the teams, a frequency distribution with cut-off points of 33.33% and 66.67% was used. Group 1 consisted of seven teams with “below average” retention rates of corporate customers (76.67% average for the group). Group 2 contained seven teams with “average” retention rates (87.0%). Group 3 consisted of eight teams with “above average” retention rates (92.54%). (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-1980 |
| Date | 01 January 2001 |
| Creators | Lachowetz, Anthony John |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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