Managing Customer Relationships in the Social Media Era: Introducing the Social CRM House

Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27 (2013) 270–280

11 Pages Posted: 21 May 2015

See all articles by Edward Malthouse

Edward Malthouse

Northwestern University

Michael Haenlein

ESCP Europe

Bernd Skiera

Goethe University Frankfurt

Egbert Wege

Roland Berger Strategy Consultants

Xiaoquan (Michael) Zhang

Chinese University of Hong Kong; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Center for Digital Business

Date Written: October 30, 2013

Abstract

CRM has traditionally referred to a company managing relationships with customers. The rise of social media, which has connected and empowered customers, challenges this fundamental raison d’etre. This paper examines how CRM needs to adapt to the rise of social media. The convergence of social media and CRM creates pitfalls and opportunities, which are explored. We organize this discussion around the new “social CRM house,” and discuss how social media engagement affects the house’s core areas (i.e., acquisition, retention, and termination) and supporting business areas (i.e., people, IT, performance evaluation, metrics and overall marketing strategy). Pitfalls discussed include the organization’s lack of control over message diffusion, big and unstructured data sets, privacy, data security, the shortage of qualified manpower, measuring the ROI of social media marketing initiatives, strategies for managing employees, integrating customer touch points, and content marketing.

Keywords: Customer relationship management, social media, engagement, information technology, customer insight, employees, key performance indicators

Suggested Citation

Malthouse, Edward and Haenlein, Michael and Skiera, Bernd and Wege, Egbert and Zhang, Xiaoquan (Michael), Managing Customer Relationships in the Social Media Era: Introducing the Social CRM House (October 30, 2013). Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27 (2013) 270–280, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2608124

Edward Malthouse (Contact Author)

Northwestern University ( email )

2001 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208
United States

Michael Haenlein

ESCP Europe ( email )

79, avenue de la République
Paris, 75011
France

Bernd Skiera

Goethe University Frankfurt ( email )

Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 4
Frankfurt, 60323
Germany
+49 69 798 34640 (Phone)
+49 69 798 35001 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.skiera.de

Egbert Wege

Roland Berger Strategy Consultants ( email )

Germany

Xiaoquan (Michael) Zhang

Chinese University of Hong Kong ( email )

Shatin, N.T.
Hong Kong

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Center for Digital Business ( email )

77 Massachusetts Avenue
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
United States

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