Trading salespersons for social media tools; a critical examination of social media tools deployment in the sales process of SMEs in Ghana

Social media and other digital tools are fast-changing business processes from companies’ marketing and communication to the selling of their products. Hence, many firms, including SMEs worldwide, adopt social media as a means of linking customers to their products. Notwithstanding the keen interest in the application of social media tools in the sales processes of academics and practitioners, the focus of research is largely on end users to neglect the consequences of its application in SMEs. Hence, this study examines the effect of social media integration into the sales function on the improvement of the quality of customer relationships, competitive intelligence, and cross/up selling. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to collect data from the 150 SMEs. The data were analyzed using Smart PLS 3.3 software to perform the partial least squares structural equation modeling test. The results of the hypothesized relationship show that social media integration into the sales function has a significantly positive relationship with customer relationship quality, competitive intelligence, and cross/up selling. The findings show that social media usage experience has a full mediation effect on the relationship between social media integration and customer relationship quality, competitive intelligence, and cross/up selling.