In the "relational era", sales-force role and activities are rapidly changing. Relationship marketing contributions and personal selling literature emphasize that salesmen should become value creators and customer partners, and should actively contribute to the acquisition of customer trust. This paper reviews the literature on relationship marketing and personal selling and through descriptive statistics, factor analyses and cluster analyses, provides empirical evidence of the current state of

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... sales-force activities in a sample of 113 sales managers of Italian firms, and explores sales-force role, as perceived by the respondents, in gaining customer trust. The findings show four typical roles performed by the sales force and three classes of customer trust drivers, as well as identifying clusters of companies characterized by the diverse activities carried out by the sales force and the different contributions made by the latter to gaining customer trust.