Rethinking Social CRM Design: A Service-Dominant Logic Perspective

The rapid rise of powerful social customers has drastically changed the e-business landscape. Social CRM (SCRM) emerged in late 2009 as an e-business strategy for companies to enable customer relationship management (with social customers) utilizing social technology. Despite the many applications that are labeled as SCRM, there is a dearth of guidelines for SCRM design and development. Many companies are trapped using social media as just another communication channel, and have naively applied traditional Electronic CRM (ECRM) practices on social platforms based on a model of exchange that centers on goods (e.g., goods-dominant logic or G-D logic), with value created by the firm and relationship implying multiple transactions of value-laden output. G-D logic might have served companies in the pre-Web 2.0 environment in which the interaction with customers could be contained in one-to-one, closed, well-defined channels. However, in a collaborative open, social environment in which interactions cannot be contained and are often unpredictable, this firm-centric, transaction-oriented approach is at odds with how social customers behave and expect, and therefore becomes inadequate in fostering true relationships that cultivate devoted advocates and brand co-creators. In this chapter, we offer an alternative logic called service-dominant (S-D) logic for SCRM design to meet new challenges. S-D logic is based on the reciprocal application of applied competences (service), which sees relationship in terms of co-creation of value. We argue that the S-D logic perspective for SCRM is appropriate, if not essential. We offer S-D logic-informed strategies for SCRM and next-generation CRM system design.