Advocates and adversaries: examining the role of supplier advocacy on customer reacquisition

Abstract

Reacquiring a lost customer is often easier, faster, and less expensive than acquiring a new customer. Thus, reacquisition activities have become important fundamental aspects of selling. Improving our understanding of the customer reacquisition efforts of business-to-business salespeople is the primary objective of this study. When customers leave, they leave behind a network of personal connections with the supplier. This research examines how assessments of these connections by salespeople relate to salesperson effort and reacquisition success. We distinguish between buying center members who support a salesperson (i.e., advocates) and those who work against the salesperson (i.e., adversaries). A conceptual model is developed and results show that advocates in a customer organization enhance both sales effort and the level of reacquisition while adversaries increase salesperson perceptions of reacquisition difficulty.