Use of social networks in managing customer relationship

Abstract

Interactions between companies and customers have changed throughout the years and, due to many reasons like sociocultural, legal, political, economic, ecological and technological evolution, these relationships have increased considerably in the last decades. As a result, the marketing strategy is no longer based on a purely transactional marketing approach but one of new marketing with a much more relational perspective. The companies’ priorities have changed and they are presently more concerned about their relationship with customers, rather than with production which used to be a priority.
Many companies have already started using CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to store, manage and organize customers’ contacts by means of web-based software that support these actions but social networks turned out to be another way of attracting new customers and keeping previous customers' creating a relationship of trust and making relationship management easier. Social network websites have therefore a growing importance in the relationship between companies end consumers.
The present thesis assesses the level of use and the impact of social networks in the customer relationships management, as far as companies are concerned. Within this framework, an empirical study based on a quiz enquiry has been made in companies in the scope of the district of Aveiro. We intend therefore to try to understand whether companies are aware of this new reality and in what way they are managing it.