Impact of Online Product and Sales Skills Training, Salesperson Engagement with Training, and Training Spillover Effect on Salesperson Performance
(A2024-119666)

AUTHORS

Siddharth Singh, Indian School of Business

ABSTRACT

We use salesperson-level data from an online modular training program of the Indian subsidiary of a global electronics manufacturer to investigate the following: (1) Effect of product-related training compared to sales skill training, and (2) Effect of salesperson engagement with the training program modules, on the number of units of products sold by a salesperson; and (3) Spillover effects of the depths of overall training and product training done by peers. The authors also analyze the heterogeneity in the above effects. The results show that while there is a strong effect of online sales training, product-related training has a stronger effect on sales performance than sales skills training. The engagement with the training (measured via quiz score at the end of each training module) positively impacts sales performance. We find positive spillover effect for the depth of training done by peers (i.e., the average number of trainings taken per peer salesperson) in the vicinity. A higher proportion of product training in the overall training mix taken by the peers also has a positive impact on a salesperson’s sales performance.