Adaptive Selling, Personal Selling, and Selling Experience on the Service Personnel Performance

Rianita


Adaptive Selling, Personal Selling, and Selling Experience on the Service Personnel Performance
Ni Made Rianita 1* Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi Satya Dharma, Singaraja, Indonesia

A B S T R A C T
The number of complaints from service users who repeatedly come to PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch shows the low performance of service officers of PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch can build a bad image at the Post Office.Vice versa, the higher the performance of the service officers of PT POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch was given, it can be added value for the Post Office.In this case, service users will be satisfied with the services provided by the Post Office.This study aims to analyze the effect of Adaptive Selling, Personal Selling, Selling Experience, and Service Personnel Performance at PT. Pos (Persero) Singaraja Branch.This research was conducted using a quantitative method (questionnaire) with a sample of 42 respondents.The data analysis technique used in this research is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Partial Least Square (PLS).Based on the data of the coefficient of determination, the value of the R-Square analysis on the Performance of Manpower Services is 96.7%.The performance produced by PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch is the result of the work of a group of people at the post office, both the service personnel of PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch can provide customer satisfaction, increasing customer retention.It can be said that the increase in Adaptive Selling means the better the performance of the service personnel, the better the service performance, the better the selling experience, and the better the performance of the service personnel.

INTRODUCTION
BUMN is a government-owned business entity assigned to seek as much state revenue as possible (Sujarweni & Jaya, 2020;R. Windiarsih & Etikariena, 2017).State revenues from SOEs are strived to continue to increase so that SOEs owned by Indonesia must make development efforts.But on the one hand, SOEs must also provide services to the public or the community (Andriyanto & Metalia, 2016;Retno Windiarsih & Etikariena, 2018).Moreover, in the face of competition in the era of globalization, the service quality of government-owned enterprises is challenged to be more optimal and able to answer the increasingly high demands of the community, both in terms of quality and in terms of service (As'ari, 2017;Tunjungsari, 2011).Public service basically concerns the relationship between service providers and people in need.Currently SOEs in Indonesia are experiencing quite tight competition (Hidayati, 2010;Siregar & Amalia, 2020).SOEs compete to provide the best service to the community, in the service sector, one of which is PT POS Indonesia PT.POS Indonesia is one of the State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) which is engaged in news, money and goods traffic services by having the largest service network and spread throughout the country.In Law Number 19 of 2003 concerning BUMN in article 1 Sole Proprietorship (Persero) is a BUMN in the form of a limited individual whose capital is divided into shares of which all or at least 51% (fifty one percent) of the shares are owned by the Republic of Indonesia., BUMN is a tangible form of State investment in the business world, the purpose of which is to encourage and develop national economic activities.The postal industry is a courier industry in charge of delivering written news from the sender to the recipient.Adaptive selling is a sales strategy.Adaptive selling is defined as selling behaviour when interacting with customers based on information received about the sales situation.Furthermore, it is stated that adaptive selling is the ability to adapt the behavior of the seller effectively in accordance with the demands of the increasingly sales situation (Kusumo, 2019;Wong & Cheng-Ling Tan, 2016).It is expected that service personnel will be able to increase Adaptive selling with the many services available by PT.Pos Indonesia (Persero).
Engaged in services, employees of PT POS Indonesia (Persero) Singaraja Branch require knowledge of the service products to be offered.Education to consumers is very important to give consumers the opportunity to choose what services to use.Personal selling is a face-to-face selling or personal selling that is most effective in marketing special products (requires detailed explanation) (Guenzi et al., 2016;Rohaeni, 2016).For example, the most popular postal package service product used is due to the proliferation of online shops in Singaraja.There are several types of service products: Ordinary, Express, Special Express, Express and Jumbo.Personal Selling is very necessary to provide useful and appropriate information to consumers.An experienced salesperson has high skills and abilities and is able to plan, execute and complete the job well.Experienced salespeople have a greater ability to identify ways to help meet customer needs and are more long-term oriented.The results also show that employee experience has an effect on improving performance (Charoensukmongkol & Suthatorn P., 2021;Mamangkey et al., 2018).Work experience is knowledge or skills that have been known and mastered by someone as a result of actions or work that has been done for some time.With the experience gained, a person will be more capable and skilled and able to carry out his job duties.
The number of complaints from service users who come repeatedly to PT. POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch is one of the factors that cause people to be reluctant to use the services of PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch.PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch received many complaints from users of its package services.The low performance of service personnel of PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch can build a bad image at the Post Office, where people who feel dissatisfied will tell their colleagues.Vice versa, the higher performance of the service personnel of PT POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch provided, will be an added value for the Post Office, in this case service users will be satisfied with the services provided by the Post Office.The Post Office can find out the service performance of its customers through the feedback provided by the customer to the Post Office so that it can be input for improving performance in providing postal packages.However, in its implementation and development, many people question the performance PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch in providing postal package services to the public.The question arises because more users of PT.JNE Singaraja Branch rather than PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch.The performance produced by PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch is the result of the work of a group of people in the post office, whether the service personnel of PT.POS (Persero) Singaraja Branch is able to provide customer satisfaction so that customer retention increases.
Adaptive selling is a change in sales behaviour during interactions with customers (Rumbiati, 2021;Wong & Cheng-Ling Tan, 2016).Adaptive selling as a sales process consisting of gathering information about customer expectations, developing sales strategies based on that information, channelling understandable signals to implement strategies, evaluating the effect of messages, and make adjustments based on the evaluation results.Salespeople have this ability to be able to make adaptive selling effectively and a positive experience will help improve their ability to make adaptive sales.Then the sixth aspect of adaptive selling relates to the actual behaviour of salespeople to use different approaches in different sales situations.The indicators of adaptive sales can be summarized into 4, confident in his ability to use a variety of different sales approaches, confident in his ability to change sales approach during customer interaction, carry out actual activities by applying different sales approaches in different sales situations, and have a collection of information about the sales situation to help with adaptation (Afrizal, 2014;Charoensukmongkol & Suthatorn P., 2021).
Experienced salespeople are expected to be able to mobilize skills in accordance with sales tasks because they have more knowledge and understanding of sales (McFarland, 2019;Sivakumaran, BSivakumaran, B., & Jacob, J. (2019).The Moderating Role Of Sales Experience In Adaptive Selling & Jacob, 2019).If they are considered incompetent, more experienced salespeople will feel pressured and embarrassed.This will improve performance orientation and achievement of their performance goals.The Sales Experience Level attribute is shaped by three indicators, namely: adaptive selling experience in the sales process, experience in modifying sales presentations, and failure/success experience in selling (Ma & Zhang, 2022;Yang et al., 2023).Performance is a result achieved by workers in doing their work according to certain criteria that apply to a particular job.Good marketing performance in general can be expressed in three main dimensions, namely sales value, sales growth and market share, which ultimately lead to company profits (Eze et al., 2019;Rahardja et al., 2019).Sales value shows rupiah or units of product sold, while sales growth shows how much increase in sales of the same product is compared to a certain time unit, and market portion shows how much contribution the product makes to the market for similar products compared to competitors (Hidayati, 2010;Sinha & Verma, 2020).
The performance of the marketing personnel is evaluated using factors controlled by the marketing personnel themselves, namely based on the behavior of the marketing personnel and the results obtained by the marketing personnel (Reisenbichler & Reutterer, 2019;Rifai & Meiliana, 2020).High salesperson performance is influenced by the attitude and other characteristics of the salesperson (Guenzi et al., 2016;Sivakumaran, BSivakumaran, B., & Jacob, J. (2019).The Moderating Role Of Sales Experience In Adaptive Selling & Jacob, 2019).Sales skills are needed in carrying out their duties to be more effective.In addition, the salesperson's knowledge of products with various qualities and facilities owned by a product is also a necessary factor.Sales force performance can only be seen from the final results such as sales volume, market penetration and sales quota achievement and that is achieved by a system of control and synergy of sales force activities.Therefore, in this study the indicators used in analyzing the performance of salespeople are the achievement of sales targets, the number of customers, and sales receipts.
The top brand index of PT.POS Indonesia experienced fluctuations, where there was a decline in 2015 and 2017.Although it experienced an increase in 2014, 2016 and 2018, PT.POS Indonesia has not been able to become the Top Brand of consumer choice.In 2018, J&T, which had just started its business, was able to occupy the second position in the top brand index in Indonesia.J&T has punctuality and a more systematic and scheduled work system so that even ordinary people can easily understand.Because it is well-systematic, the packet movement process can be monitored and predicted when it will arrive at its destination (excluding technical constraints or Force Majeure).Because they are engaged in the service sector, service personnel are considered important to pay attention to in order to win the hearts of consumers to return to using these services.Data in 2018 shows that despite an increase of 3.2%, PT POS Indonesia has not been able to become the TOP Brand of consumer choice.The performance improvement of service personnel should be carried out.Based on the above background, this study aims to analyze the effect of Adaptive Selling, Personal Selling, Selling Experience, and Service Personnel Performance at PT. Pos (Persero) Singaraja Branch.

METHODS
This research was conducted at PT POS Indonesia (PERSERO) Singaraja Branch which is located on Jln.Gajah Mada No. 156, Singaraja, Bali.The types of data used in this study include quantitative data, while the data sources used in the research are primary and secondary data.The population and sample in this study were 42 officers of PT.Pos Indonesia (PERSERO).The data collection technique used in this research is a questionnaire that is given is a number of questions and written statements submitted to the respondents.The questionnaire in this study uses a type of scale ranging from 1 to 5 with criteria strongly disagrees and 6 to 10 with criteria strongly agree where the data used is using interval data.All service personnel at PT Pos Indonesia (PERSERO) Singaraja Branch were sampled in the study including 13 counter clerks, 3 extension counters and 26 couriers, the total number is 42 people.These officers were sampled because they were in direct charge of service users of PT Pos Indonesia (PERSERO) Singaraja Branch.The data analysis technique used to test the research hypothesis is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Partial Least Square (PLS) approach.The analytical steps used in the PLS approach include: (a) Outer Model testing for reflexive indicators evaluated with covergent and for indicators forming latent constructs with discriminant validity, as well as through composite reliability and Cronbach alpha for the indicator block, (b) Model Testing Structural (InnerModel) was performed using R-square for the dependent construct, Stone-Geisser Q-square for predictive relevance, and t-test and the significance of the coefficients of structural path parameters (Ghozali, 2013).
Table 2 shows that all constructs in the study yielded composite reliability values above >0.70 and cronbach's alpha value above >0.60.The lowest composite reliability and cronbach's alpha values were on the Adaptive Selling construct with values of 0.933 and 0.904.So it can be concluded that all the constructs of this study are reliable.The R-square value for the Service Personnel Performance variable obtained by 0.967.
The significance of the estimated parameters provides very useful information regarding the relationships between research variables.The basis used in testing relationships is the value found in the output result of the inner weight.In PLS testing statistically every relationship is performed with simulation.In this case the bootstrapping method is done to the sample.Bootstrap testing is also intended to minimize the problem of innormality of research data.The test results with the bootstrapping method using SmartPLS in Table 3. Table 3 shows the results of the relationship test between variables where the Adaptive Selling positively affects Service Personnel Performance with a paramenter coefficient value of (0.247) then the Personal Selling variable has a positive effect on Service Personnel Performance with a paramenter coefficient value of (0.170) while Selling Experience has a positive effect on Service Personnel Performance with a coefficient value of (0.622).All three variables have a calculated t value greater than the table t (1.96).So it can be concluded that variables have a valid relationship.

Discussion
Salespeople can be said to have a high level of adaptive selling if they can use different sales approaches appropriately during transactions with customers and when making decisions during sales transactions for different sales situations (McFarland, 2019;Rumbiati, 2021).On the other hand, salespeople are said to have a low level of adaptive selling if they only use the same sales approach and sales decision-making techniques for all sales transactions carried out in any sales situation.In the results of this study, the Adaptive Selling Construct has an effect on the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch.The effect of Adaptive Selling on Service Personnel Performance is positive and significant where the t value is 2.091 which are greater than the t table 1.96.These results mean that the better the Adaptive Selling, the better the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch.
In the research shows a positive relationship between adaptive selling and sales performance (Charoensukmongkol & Suthatorn P., 2021;Wong & Cheng-Ling Tan, 2016).Adaptive selling is also conceptualized as working smart where salespeople must be able to recognize different sales situations to be able to apply the most appropriate sales approach.In addition, Positive influence of adaptive selling on sales performance (Kusumo, 2019;Rumbiati, 2021).Having adaptive sales shows the ability and skill of the salesperson in carrying out certain techniques and approaches appropriately by taking into account the conditions and situations at hand.Salespeople will be able to provide a satisfaction of needs to customers because they are able to recognize each customer's different needs and desires and provide an appropriate alternative sales approach (Charoensukmongkol & Suthatorn P., 2021;Itani et al., 2017).The level of adaptability of a salesperson requires a highly skilled and trained workforce who can interpret sales situations and then adopt these sales tactics for the needs of their customers, which includes planning specific sales strategies for different customers.
The purpose of personal selling is to increase sales as well as maintain customer loyalty, provide technical services and communicate product information (Rohaeni, 2016;Rumbiati, 2021).The product information is fully related to the broader marketing objective of maintaining and increasing sales to current customers.In this research, Personal Selling construct has an effect on the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch.The influence of Personal Selling on Service Personnel Performance is positive and significant where the t value is 2.022 which are greater than t table 1.96.These results mean that the better the Personal Selling, the better the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch.Personal Selling emphasizes persuasive communication to be able to arouse the possibility of customers to make a purchase (McFarland, 2019;Rohaeni, 2016).Direct communication between sellers and potential customers to introduce a product to potential customers and form customer understanding of the product is carried out so that they will then try and buy it.
Research conducted showed that sales promotion carried out in two directions is considered more effective in marketing products, because the ultimate goal in a promotion is to make sales.In addition, personal selling is a communication activity between producers represented by salespeople and potential consumers that involves thoughts and emotions, and of course face to face.The work result of a sales force is defined as a reflection that reflects the success or achievement of a salesperson in managing resources and combining it with the application of the right and fast implementation of strategies (Charoensukmongkol & Suthatorn P., 2021;Kwak et al., 2019).The study explained that there is a positive relationship between personal selling and service performance (Kwak et al., 2019).Because dealing directly with potential consumers, personal selling has advantages compared to other promotional tools.
The influence of Selling Experience is considered very effective because in line with the times and technology, marketers place more emphasis on product differentiation to differentiate their products from competitors' products.Other research states that a salesperson who has experience will have a positive influence on his performance results through his selling ability (Mutari & Figart, 2016;Singh & Das, 2013).Service personnel can provide information and opportunities for customers to experience the benefits of the product or service it and also generate emotions and feelings that have an impact on marketing, especially sales to differentiate with competitors' products, to create a corporate image and identity, to promote innovation, to induce trial, purchase, and most importantly loyal consumption.Experienced sales people are expected to be able to deploy skills according to sales tasks because they have more knowledge and understanding of sales (Kharisma & Ibnu, 2015).So that if they are considered incompetent, the more experienced sales force will feel pressured and embarrassed.Thus, it will improve performance orientation and achievement of their performance goals.

CONCLUSION
Based on the results of the research, it can be concluded several important things that the first is the Adaptive Selling construct has a positive and significant effect on the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch.These results mean that the better the Adaptive Selling, the better the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch.The second one is The Personal Selling construct has a positive and significant impact on the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch.These results mean that the better the Personal Selling, the better the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch.The last one is The Selling Experience construct has a positive and significant impact on the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch.This result means that the better the PSelling Experience, the better the Performance of Service Personnel at PT. POS Indonesia Singaraja Branch