e-Customer service management in the social media ecosystem

To discuss Internet-based customer service in the social media ecosystem, you need to have some ideas about the two terms used:

a. Customer service: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_service
b. Social media ecosystem: http://www.slideshare.net/leminhhai/social-media-ecosystem-2706486

In a paper on Internet-based customer service by Walsh and Godrey (2000),  they stressed the importance of strengthened customer relationship management by retailers based on a more comprehensive and sophisticated customer intelligence database. Such data were much more easily gathered online. With that, online retailers could make their online customer service more accessible, more relevant and  more supportive of constant dialogue with customers. Morever,  online retailers were able to provide added value, e.g., in the forms of online personalized recommendation services, virtual communities for customer-to-customer interation and customized products. The business benefits of such Internet-based customer service were more customer loyalty and trust, more sales and profit from strengthened customer relationship management based on improved customer profitability analysis.

In the contemporary social media ecosystem, these ideas from Walsh and Godrefy remain laregly valid. On top of relying on virtual communities, on-line retailers need to consider social networking platforms, blogs, and micro-blogs such as twitter to engage consumers. Online retailers need to be more prepared to conduct marketing 3.0 practices in their e-customer service in the social media ecosystem. Consumer behaviour and expectations in 2011, as affected by contemporary social media ecosystem, are not the same as those in 2000; thus, there is a need for more marketing 3.0 thinking in online customer service management.

Finally, online retailers need to closely monitor their online customer service quality, perhaps by using the GAP model of service quality, because the business ecosystem they face is very often hyper-competitive.


References

1. Business ecosystem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_ecosystem
2. eCRM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECRM
3. Hypercompetition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercompetition
4. Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., and Setiawan, I. (2010) Marketing 3.0, John Wiley and Sons.
5. The gap model of service quality: http://www.degromoboy.com/cs/gap.htm
6. Walsh, J. and Godfrey, S. (2000). "The Internet: A New Era in Customer Service", European Management Journal, Vol. 18(1), pp. 85-92.