Social media: Influencing customer satisfaction in B2B sales Raj Agnihotri a, ⁎, Rebecca Dingus b , Michael Y. Hu c , Michael T. Krush d a The University of Texas at Arlington, 701 West Street, Arlington, TX 76019, United States b Central Michigan University, 100 Smith Hall, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859, United States c Kent State University, 475 Terrace Drive, Kent, OH 44242, United States d North Dakota State University, 316 Richard H. Barry Hall, 811 2nd Avenue, North, Fargo, ND 58108, United States abstract article info Article history: Received 20 July 2013 Received in revised form 7 August 2014 Accepted 24 September 2014 Available online 15 September 2015 Keywords: Sales management Salesperson social media use Information communication Customer satisfaction Social media have changed how buyers and sellers interact, and increased involvement through social media may yield positive results for sales organizations if salespeople utilize it in facilitating their behaviors. Through the per- spective of value creation, we test the mediating effects of salesperson information communication behaviors be- tween social media use and customer satisfaction. Using salesperson-reported data, within a B2B context, we empirically test a model using structural equation modeling. Salesperson's use of social media is found to impact information communication behaviors, which enhance salesperson responsiveness and customer satisfaction. Also, salesperson responsiveness is found to have a positive relationship with customer satisfaction. Findings sug- gest that social media plays an important role in communicating information to customers, but as an antecedent enhancing salesperson behaviors to increase customer satisfaction rather than a direct factor. This encourages managers to carefully assess goals related to social media use of their sales force. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Social media is changing our world. Through the advent of smartphones and social media, accessibility of information is higher than it ever has been before. Customers are frequently asked to “like” companies on Facebook, to “follow” companies on Twitter, or to “con- nect” via LinkedIn. As a result, customers are becoming better connected to companies, more knowledgeable about product selections, and more powerful in buyer-seller relationships. In broad terms, incorporating the use of social media in customer in- teractions is a logical progression for firms to expand communication with their customers (Avlonitis & Panagopoulos, 2010). For instance, trade-media encourage the use of social media (e.g. Wirthman, 2013) for firms, suggesting that social media is important for business as it aids in generating business exposure, increasing traffic, and providing marketplace insight (Stelzner, 2012). From a sales force perspective, Andzulis, Panagopoulos, and Rapp (2012) assert that social media should be an integral part of a firm's rep- ertoire, as it allows salespeople to engage customers and build social cap- ital that would “encourage customers to interact, engage, and establish relationships with them” (Agnihotri, Kothandaraman, Kashyap, & Singh, 2012, p. 341). For instance, blog posts can be positioned to create discus- sion or debate as a means of listening to customers. Value propositions can be demonstrated through success stories shared on Facebook. Networks on LinkedIn can be used to build awareness and gain referrals (Andzulis et al., 2012). In sum, active use of social media can help sales- people in their communication with customers (Agnihotri et al., 2012). As such, we suggest two key downstream effects of social media with- in the sales domain. First, social media provides a means to communicate to customers in a manner that may plausibly enable greater salesperson responsiveness. For instance, when consumer complaints are lodged on a social networking site, 58% of consumers want a response; yet only 22% report receiving a response (Right Now Technologies, 2010). Hence, social media may provide one means to enable the salesperson to communicate in a more responsive manner. Second, social media may have implications on customer satisfaction. In general, with increased interactions and contact with firms, power is shifting from seller to buyer (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). An increase in buyer-seller collaboration and co-creation of knowledge and value (Greenberg, 2010) has placed buyers on a more equal footing with sellers. As such customers may hold higher expectation for these interactions and engagements, such that firms and customer contact employees must adapt (Hibbert, Winklhofer, & Temerak, 2012) or risk alienating or losing their customer base. For instance, a Harris Interactive report found that 82% of consumers have discontinued dealing with a company as a result of a negative experience (Right Now Technologies, 2010). Hence, social media may provide a means to better enable positive expe- riences that meet the expectations of the customer base. Therefore, this paper considers the importance of social media in a business-to-business (B2B) sales context. To build our theoretical foun- dation, we consider what is already known about social media interac- tions in a business-to-consumer (B2C) context and expand upon this Industrial Marketing Management 53 (2016) 172–180 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: 817-272-3016. E-mail addresses: rajshekar.agnihotri@uta.edu (R. Agnihotri), rebecca.dingus@cmich.edu (R. Dingus), mhu@kent.edu (M.Y. Hu), michael.krush@ndsu.edu (M.T. Krush). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2015.09.003 0019-8501/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Industrial Marketing Management