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Understanding the Impact of Customer Relationship Disruptions Resulting from Salesperson Change (Schmitz et al.)

It is widely believed that a B2B relationship disruption, which refers to the change of the salesperson in a customer relationship with another salesperson within the same firm, results in negative consequences such as a loss of customer knowledge, diminished interpersonal trust, and increased uncertainty. However, some B2B relationship disruptions also have positive effects that countervails some of the negative effects of disruptions. Results of this study indicate that relationship disruption can decrease resale value by 28.8% but it can also revitalize the relationship and increase new sales revenue by 52.2%.