Frontline Sales and Leadership Program

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.

The NCA&TSU School of Business & Economics 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 Partnership innovative curricula and student internships are offered. The 3M Frontline Initiative Summer Internship Program is a ten week assignment that offers qualified students a unique opportunity to sell for one of the divisions of the company.

Jacqueline A. Williams is an Associate Professor of Marketing and Sales at North Carolina A&TState Univeristy.   Dr. Williams brings a wealth of industry experience to the CRM&M Program including experience in manufacturing, marketing, sales management, and information technology  with such companies as McNeil Consumer Products Company, Avon Products Company, and E. I. DuPont De Nemours.  At NCA&T she serves as the Frontline Initiative Faculty Partner and leads NCA&T’s Professional Sales programs and its Customer Relationship Marketing and Management 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 customer service.  In addition her research focuses on the practice and education of students in sales and customer service competencies.  Dr. Williams’s research has been published in the Journal of Services Marketing, the Journal of Business Ethics, and the Journal of Industrial Marketing Management, among others

She earned a BS in Commerce and Engineering Sciences from Drexel University, a MBA degree with a concentration in marketing from the University of Delaware, and a doctorate in Business Administration from Florida State University.