Abstract The concept of customer centricity is frequently debated by sales and marketing researchers and practitioners. However, to date no validated scale exists that measures to what extent customers perceive companies as customer centric. Against this backdrop, drawing on prior literature, qualitative interviews, and a customer survey (N = 246), the authors develop and validate a measurement scale for perceived customer centricity. In addition, using matched survey and financial data from industrial customers (N = 1,089), the authors examine antecedents and consequences of perceived customer centricity. Results show that customers perceive firms as customer centric if the supplier is customer oriented on both the overall firm level and the salesperson level. Furthermore, perceived customer centricity is strongly linked to customers’ loyalty intentions and objective sales revenue, particularly if customers perceive a firm to exhibit high prices. Thus, this article equips managers with a validated and easy-to-use measurement that allows monitoring a firm’s progress toward customer centricity.

中文翻译：

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客户什么时候意识到以客户为中心？公司和销售人员以客户为导向的作用

摘要 以客户为中心的概念经常受到销售和营销研究人员和从业人员的争论。然而，迄今为止，还没有经过验证的量表来衡量客户在多大程度上认为公司以客户为中心。在此背景下，作者利用先前的文献、定性访谈和客户调查 (N = 246)，开发并验证了感知以客户为中心的测量量表。此外，作者使用来自工业客户（N = 1,089）的匹配调查和财务数据，研究了感知以客户为中心的前因和后果。结果表明，如果供应商在整个公司层面和销售人员层面都以客户为导向，则客户认为公司是以客户为中心的。此外，感知到的以客户为中心与客户的忠诚度意图和客观销售收入密切相关，特别是如果客户认为公司表现出高价。因此，本文为管理人员提供了一种经过验证且易于使用的衡量标准，可以监控公司朝着以客户为中心的进展情况。