Frontline Sales and Leadership Program

CRM&M Overview | CRM&M Program Details | CRM&M Curriculum | CRM&M Course Descriptions

The terms frontline employee, customer contact employee, and customer-facing employee are used interchangeably to represent a broad range of jobs across industries where these boundary-spanners are influential in shaping perceptions of the company and ultimately its profitability through customer interaction. A customer’s interaction with a frontline employee has been described as the “moment of truth” at which customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty is often defined.

As effective boundary spanners, frontline employees must be able to gain commitment, to invoke trust, and to get work done through others inside and outside of the organization. Thus, it is critical for a market-focused organization to nurture a leadership-rich frontline to successfully leverage its customer orientation. Nurturing practical leadership attributes include building competencies in 1) visioning the future, 2) stretching targets over time, 3) influencing others, 4) developing novel approaches to customers, products, and markets, 5) committing to ethical business principles and conduct, and 6) delivering results.

NCA&TSU School of Business is one of the 3M Frontline Partnership Schools preparing students for leadership roles on the customer frontline. 3M is a diversified technology company serving customers and communities with innovative products and services. Each of their seven businesses has earned leading global market positions. Through the Frontline Parntnership innovative curriculae and student internships are offered. The 3M Frontline Initiative Summer Internship Program is a ten week assignment that offeers qualified students a unique opportunity to sell for one of the divisions of the company.

Dr. Jakki Williams brings extensive teaching and research experience to the Frontline Sales and Leadership Program. Leveraging both corporate and academic experience, she has been instrumental in helping students understand the opportunities and benefits of a career in sales and in learning sales skills. In addition, she embraces active learning techniques and practicing with the latest software and system applications.

Along with learning basic sales skills, she champions the development of new courses in Customer Relationship Marketing and Management (CRM&M) as well as Practical Leadership. She has published in major academic journals and conference proceedings in the marketing discipline.