Understanding and managing customer engagement through social customer relationship management

ABSTRACT

In the present scenario of the globalised digital era, organisations have implemented social media as a methodology of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) cultivates a new relationship by engaging customers on social media sites. Old-style CRM is modernizing into SCRM, and the key responsibilities in this new marketing and business environment are Customer Engagement (CE). The present study endeavours to assess how SCRM influences CE by investigating the impact of SCRM on CE and further effect of CE on Customer Loyalty (CL), Customer Retention (CR) and Customer Satisfaction (CS). The research is descriptive in nature and self-administered questionnaire was prepared to attain the stated objectives. Primary data were collected from the diverse group of respondents, edited and analysed with the help of statistical tools SPSS and AMOS −18.0. The study concludes that CE occurs through proper CRM, resulting in CL, CR, and CS.

KEYWORDS:

• Customer Engagement (CE)
• Customer Satisfaction (CS)
• Customer Loyalty (CL)
• Customer Retention (CR)
• SocialCustomer Relationship Management (SCRM)

Acknowledgments

Bank Albilad Chair of Electronic Commerce (BACEC) has funded this research work.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Executive Summary

In today’s high-tech environment, companies communicate with customers through various social media channels and engage them. The present study is descriptive in nature that attempts to evaluate how social customer relationship management (SCRM) practices are influencing customer engagement (CE). SCRM has proven to be useful tool for engaging customers over social media platforms, and further CE has a significant influence on customer loyalty (CL), customer retention (CR) and customer satisfaction (CS). The key highlights of this research study are:

• The study reveals that social media helps to maintain good relations with customers and influence the customers to continue to buy and strengthen them to share the information with their friends and followers on social media by engaging them.

• It has been also identified that customer engagement is a key strategy for maintaining the relationship between CRM and social media.

• The study helps marketers to make sound online customer engagement strategies by developing additional knowledge on SCRM to enhance online customer’s engagement experience over social media.

• The study recommends a cohesive conceptual model that merges CRM efficiency measurements with social media technologies to produce engagement in the form of brand loyalty, CR and CS.

The study concludes that CE occurs through proper CRM, resulting in CS, CL and CR.