Online Training of Salespeople: Impact, Heterogeneity, and Spillover Effects

The authors use data from a field study concerning an online salesperson training program to investigate (1) the overall impact of program participation on sales performance for two kinds of products, “Focus” and “Other” (the direct impact); (2) heterogeneity in the impact of program participation across salespeople; and (3) spillover effect of program participation by others in the vicinity on salesperson performance (the indirect impact). The program contains short-duration training modules accessed via an online platform. Salespeople choose whether to take any module, how many modules to take, and when to take them. Results show that although training improved sales performance, the average impact of training on Other product sales was immediate, significant, and positive, and that on Focus product sales was delayed. Further, the impact of training diminishes over time. The authors find significant heterogeneity in the impact of training across salespeople and regions. Finally, the results show a mixed spillover effect of training by peers. There is a positive spillover effect on sales of the focal salesperson with an increase in the total number of trainings taken by peer salespeople, and a negative or no spillover effect with an increase in the number of peer salespeople taking training.