Selling Orientation–Customer Orientation Scale (SOCO)

1. Abstract

The Selling Orientation–Customer Orientation Scale (SOCO), developed by Robert Saxe and Barton A. Weitz in 1982, is a foundational psychometric instrument within organizational psychology, relational marketing, and personal selling literature. Designed to operationalize the marketing concept at the individual boundary-spanning employee level, the instrument assesses the behavioral orientations of sales personnel toward their buyers. The SOCO consists of 24 self-report items structured into two distinct, inversely correlated dimensions: Customer Orientation (CO), comprising 12 items assessing behaviors aimed at discovering, understanding, and satisfying long-term customer needs; and Selling Orientation (SO), comprising 12 items reflecting transaction-focused, high-pressure, and persuasive tactics aimed at closing immediate sales regardless of product fit or post-purchase consumer utility.

Administered via an authentic 9-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (True for NONE of your customers – NEVER) to 9 (True for ALL of your customers – ALWAYS), the instrument allows researchers and practitioners to capture behavioral variance across diverse sales environments. Psychometrically, the SOCO demonstrates exceptional internal consistency, with reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely exceeding .80 for both subscales (originally reported as .86 for Customer Orientation and .83 for Selling Orientation). Decades of structural equation modeling, confirmatory factor analyses, and cross-cultural replications have established robust construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity. The scale exhibits strong predictive utility for long-term customer satisfaction, sales representative performance, buyer-seller trust, customer retention, and organizational citizenship behaviors across business-to-business (B2B), banking, pharmaceutical, insurance, and retail service environments.

2. Keywords

SOCO scale, Customer Orientation, Selling Orientation, personal selling, boundary-spanning behavior, marketing concept, relationship marketing, buyer-seller interaction, sales performance, psychometrics

3. Authors

The Selling Orientation–Customer Orientation Scale was conceived, developed, and empirically validated by two prominent scholars in the fields of marketing strategy and sales management:

• Robert Saxe, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY). Dr. Saxe’s scholarly agenda focuses on sales management, professional selling behaviors, market research methodology, and consumer decision-making processes.
• Barton A. Weitz, Ph.D.: J.C. Penney Eminent Scholar Chair Emeritus in Retail Management and Executive Director of the David F. Miller Center for Retailing Education and Research at the Warrington College of Business, University of Florida. Dr. Weitz is widely recognized as one of the preeminent foundational theorists in personal selling, sales force effectiveness, organizational relationship structures, and retail strategy.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the SOCO scale is to operationalize, diagnose, and quantify individual-level adherence to the marketing concept versus the selling concept within dyadic commercial interactions. Prior to the introduction of the SOCO in 1982, marketing literature predominantly examined the marketing concept as an aggregate corporate philosophy or strategic firm-level orientation. However, empirical marketing scholars recognized a substantial theoretical and operational gap: corporate philosophies only influence customer relationships when translated into tangible behavioral manifestations by boundary-spanning personnel—specifically sales representatives who directly interact with purchasers.

Saxe and Weitz developed the SOCO to measure the degree to which a salesperson engages in collaborative, problem-solving behaviors versus manipulative, hard-sell tactics. In research contexts, the scale serves as an indispensable tool for investigating antecedent factors (such as organizational climate, ethical leadership, compensation schemes, emotional intelligence, and role ambiguity) and consequent outcomes (including sales performance, customer trust, repeat purchase intentions, affective commitment, and burnout). In organizational and consulting applications, the SOCO provides diagnostic feedback for sales force selection, developmental coaching, executive training, and performance appraisal systems.

From a theoretical rationale, sales interactions cannot be reduced to simple mechanistic exchanges; they are deeply psychological, interpersonal episodes characterized by information asymmetry and conflicting incentives. High-pressure sales techniques may maximize immediate transactional volume at the severe expense of relationship equity, post-decision cognitive dissonance, and buyer regret. Conversely, customer-oriented selling aligns the long-term utility of the buyer with the commercial viability of the seller. The SOCO enables researchers to isolate these behavioral orientations with high psychometric precision, providing empirical clarity regarding when, why, and under what boundary conditions customer-oriented behaviors lead to superior sales performance.

5. Psychological Construct

The SOCO scale conceptualizes sales behaviors along two core behavioral dimensions that reflect fundamentally divergent paradigms regarding customer engagement, value creation, and persuasion:

Customer Orientation (CO)

The Customer Orientation subscale encapsulates behaviors that operationalize the marketing concept at the micro-interaction level. Customer-oriented salespeople prioritize discovering and fulfilling the genuine, latent, and manifested needs of buyers. Key psychological and behavioral facets include:

• Active Need Identification: Engaging in diagnostic questioning, empathic listening, and cognitive perspective-taking to understand the customer’s unique operational constraints and goals (e.g., Item 5: “I try to figure out what a customer’s needs are.”).
• Information-Based Persuasion: Relying on rational, evidence-based communication and transparent product knowledge rather than emotional manipulation or high-pressure tactics (e.g., Item 2: “I try to influence a customer by information rather than pressure.”).
• Solution-Centric Offering: Presenting only those products or services that genuinely resolve the buyer’s challenges, even if doing so results in lower immediate sales commissions (e.g., Item 9: “I offer the product of mine that is best suited to the customer’s problem.”).
• Ethical Transparency and Candor: Providing honest product evaluations and being willing to contradict or redirect a customer if a requested item does not serve their long-term welfare (e.g., Item 8: “I am willing to disagree with a customer in order to help him make a better decision.”).

Selling Orientation (SO)

The Selling Orientation subscale captures hard-sell, transaction-dominated behaviors rooted in short-term profit maximization. Selling-oriented sales representatives view customer interactions through a zero-sum lens, prioritizing immediate transaction closure over post-purchase consumer satisfaction. Core facets include:

• Exploitation of Buyer Vulnerability: Actively identifying and capitalizing on psychological weaknesses, informational disadvantages, or cognitive biases to compel purchase (e.g., Item 14: “I keep alert for weaknesses in a customer’s personality so I can use them to put pressure on him to buy.”).
• High-Pressure and Aggressive Persuasion: Exerting intense interpersonal pressure, inducing artificial urgency, and prioritizing the closing sequence over collaborative problem definition (e.g., Item 15: “If I am not sure a product is right for a customer, I will still apply pressure to get him to buy.”).
• Misrepresentation and Opportunism: Stretching factual assertions, exaggerating performance metrics, and withholding critical limitations to ensure the sale is executed (e.g., Item 18: “I paint too rosy a picture of my products, to make them sound as good as possible.”; Item 21: “I stretch the truth a little when describing the product to a customer.”).
• Adversarial Relational Posture: Viewing the buyer not as a collaborative partner, but as an opponent or rival to be overcome (e.g., Item 24: “I treat a customer as a rival.”).

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical underpinning of the SOCO scale rests upon the convergence of Social Exchange Theory (Homans, 1958; Blau, 1964), Relationship Marketing Theory (Dwyer, Schurr, & Oh, 1987), and Agency Theory.

Social Exchange Theory posits that human interactions are sustained over time based on subjective cost-benefit analyses, reciprocity, and mutual trust. In transactional selling models (Selling Orientation), the exchange is episodic; the seller seeks to extract maximum economic value in an immediate timeframe without regard for future relational cycles. Consequently, when perceived costs or deceptive outcomes occur, customer trust collapses, precluding future interactions. In contrast, Customer Orientation embodies social exchange principles by investing upfront cognitive effort and ethical goodwill into the relationship. The salesperson treats the interaction as a non-zero-sum collaborative endeavor, generating relational capital, trust, and perceived credibility that foster long-term loyalty and sustainable client retention.

Furthermore, the SOCO scale draws heavily upon Barton Weitz’s Contingency Model of Salesperson Effectiveness (Weitz, 1981). This model conceptualizes personal selling as an adaptive, dynamic interpersonal process. Rather than relying on rigid, standardized sales presentations, effective customer-oriented representatives adapt their behavioral scripts to fit the customer’s cognitive frame and problem-solving stage. High-pressure sales strategies, characteristic of Selling Orientation, violate adaptive selling tenets by forcing unilateral closure, leading to reactance, buyer regret, and cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957).

7. Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations over four decades have validated the SOCO scale across diverse industries, geographic cultures, and organizational hierarchies.

Construct, Convergent, and Discriminant Validity

In their seminal 1982 validation study, Saxe and Weitz administered the instrument across multiple commercial samples comprising hundreds of industrial and retail sales professionals. Construct validity was evidenced by predicted correlations with established psychological and behavioral measures. Customer Orientation correlated positively with empathetic concern, cognitive perspective-taking, ethical reasoning, intrinsic motivation, and interpersonal sensitivity. In contrast, Selling Orientation correlated positively with Machiavellianism, aggressive dominance, extrinsic financial orientation, and short-term quota panic.

Discriminant validity between the two dimensions has been consistently established. Although theoretical models initially considered Customer Orientation and Selling Orientation to be polar opposite ends of a single continuum, empirical data consistently indicate that they are distinct, moderately negative orthogonal dimensions (typically demonstrating inter-factor correlations ranging from r = -.30 to r = -.55). This demonstrates that the absence of customer orientation does not automatically imply the aggressive deployment of manipulative selling tactics, and vice versa.

Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity

The SOCO scale exhibits exceptional criterion-related and predictive validity in forecasting objective and subjective organizational outcomes. Longitudinal research indicates that high Customer Orientation scores predict higher customer satisfaction ratings, stronger customer retention rates, elevated customer lifetime value (CLV), and increased word-of-mouth recommendations. Furthermore, metaanalytic evaluations (e.g., Franke & Park, 2006; Schwepker, 2003) demonstrate that Customer Orientation is positively associated with sales performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment, while Selling Orientation is linked to customer complaints, post-decision buyer dissonance, transactional churn, and salesperson role stress.

8. Reliability

The internal consistency reliability of the SOCO scale has been corroborated across extensive psychometric literature. In the original development study by Saxe and Weitz (1982), reliability analyses revealed high internal consistency estimates:

• Customer Orientation Subscale (12 items): Cronbach’s alpha (α) = .86
• Selling Orientation Subscale (12 items): Cronbach’s alpha (α) = .83

Subsequent psychometric replications across varied industrial, financial, and retail contexts have reported comparable or superior reliability estimates. For instance, studies examining banking advisors, pharmaceutical sales forces, and software enterprise representatives routinely report Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from .82 to .91 for Customer Orientation and .79 to .88 for Selling Orientation. Test-retest reliability assessments across multi-month intervals have documented high temporal stability coefficients (ranging from r = .74 to .82), establishing that the SOCO captures enduring behavioral orientations and professional traits rather than fleeting situational fluctuations.

9. Factor Analysis

Saxe and Weitz (1982) conducted rigorous exploratory factor analyses (EFA) using principal components extraction with varimax and oblique rotations. The exploratory analyses confirmed that the 24 items cleanly mapped onto two distinct factors accounting for substantial total variance:

• Factor 1 (Customer Orientation): Defined by items 1 through 12, featuring strong positive factor loadings (predominantly between .52 and .78) on behaviors centered around problem-solving, information sharing, and customer welfare maximization.
• Factor 2 (Selling Orientation): Defined by items 13 through 24, featuring substantial factor loadings (ranging between .48 and .75) on behaviors emphasizing persuasion, deceptive embellishment, transaction prioritization, and interpersonal pressure.

Later confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) conducted by contemporary researchers (e.g., Siguaw, Brown, & Widing, 1994; Thomas, Soutar, & Ryan, 2001) have systematically confirmed the two-dimensional model structure. While some researchers have explored abbreviated or modified variants (e.g., 10-item or 12-item shortened batteries), the authentic 24-item two-factor specification consistently yields acceptable to excellent goodness-of-fit indices across diverse structural equation modeling investigations (e.g., Comparative Fit Index [CFI] > .92; Tucker-Lewis Index [TLI] > .90; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] < .06; Standardized Root Mean Square Residual [SRMR] < .05).

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Psychometric Self-Report Behavioral Assessment Tool
• Target Population: Professional salespeople, boundary-spanning customer service personnel, commercial account managers, and retail sales representatives
• Item Count: 24 authentic items
  • Customer Orientation (CO) Subscale: 12 items (Items 1 through 12)
  • Selling Orientation (SO) Subscale: 12 items (Items 13 through 24)
• Response Scale: Authentic 9-point Likert scale:
  • 1 = True for NONE of your customers – NEVER
  • 2 = True for ALMOST NONE of your customers
  • 3 = True for VERY FEW of your customers
  • 4 = True for SOMEWHAT FEW of your customers
  • 5 = True for ABOUT HALF of your customers – SOMETIMES
  • 6 = True for A FAIR NUMBER of your customers
  • 7 = True for A LARGE NUMBER of your customers
  • 8 = True for ALMOST ALL of your customers
  • 9 = True for ALL of your customers – ALWAYS
• Scoring Rules:
  • Independent Subscale Analysis: Calculate separate mean or sum scores for Customer Orientation (Items 1–12) and Selling Orientation (Items 13–24). Higher scores reflect greater behavioral manifestation of that specific orientation.
  • Composite SOCO Score: When an overarching single index of customer orientation is required, reverse-score all Selling Orientation items (Items 13–24: inverted on the 9-point continuum such that 1 becomes 9, 2 becomes 8, etc.) and calculate the global average across all 24 items.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Year of Publication: 1982
• Copyright & Intellectual Ownership: The original instrument was published by Robert Saxe and Barton A. Weitz in the Journal of Marketing Research, published by the American Marketing Association (AMA).
• Academic and Educational Use: The scale is widely accessible and utilized across the international scholarly community. Non-commercial academic researchers may administer the instrument for scholarly, educational, and empirical investigation provided that full attribution and citation of the seminal 1982 publication are explicitly maintained.
• Commercial and Proprietary Applications: Utilization of the scale for commercial diagnostics, corporate assessments, selection benchmarking, or proprietary sales consulting may require formal permissions or licensing through the copyright holders and the American Marketing Association.

12. References

Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. John Wiley & Sons.

Dwyer, F. R., Schurr, P. H., & Oh, S. (1987). Developing buyer-seller relationships. Journal of Marketing, 51(2), 11–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298705100202

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.

Franke, G. R., & Park, J. E. (2006). Salesperson adaptive selling behavior and customer orientation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marketing Research, 43(4), 693–702. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.43.4.693

Homans, G. C. (1958). Social behavior as exchange. American Journal of Sociology, 63(6), 597–606. https://doi.org/10.1086/222355

Saxe, R., & Weitz, B. A. (1982). The SOCO scale: A measure of the customer orientation of salespeople. Journal of Marketing Research, 19(3), 343–351. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378201900307

Schwepker, C. H. (2003). Customer-oriented selling: A review, extension, and directions for future research. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 23(2), 151–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/08853134.2003.10748995

Siguaw, J. A., Brown, G., & Widing, R. E. (1994). The influence of the market orientation of the firm on sales force behavior and attitudes. Journal of Marketing Research, 31(1), 106–116. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379403100109

Thomas, R. W., Soutar, G. N., & Ryan, M. M. (2001). The Selling Orientation-Customer Orientation (S.O.C.O.) scale: A cross-cultural analysis. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 21(1), 63–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/08853134.2001.10754256

Weitz, B. A. (1981). Effectiveness in sales interactions: A contingency framework. Journal of Marketing, 45(1), 85–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298104500109

13. Items of the Scale