Customer service on Social Media

Introduction

Customer act as very important party for a company. They which has the ability to choose the products and buy the products or services of the company. The customer group of an organization may include users, buyers, and decision makers in a group, funders, referrers, and staff as internal customer. For example, the customer able to choose the drink of Drinho Company and Yeo’s Company when the season of Chinese New Year. The sales of the company will depends on the customers. Besides, customer value is important to identify the company in the market. Customer value is the difference between the cost of the customer purchase and the customer gains the products or services (Yamamoto, n.d.). As an example that A mobile phone selling in more higher price than other mobile phone but customer will define the quality of the mobile phone before purchase the phone. The quality will increase the customer value and help customer in making a purchase decision. Therefore the customer relationship management was become a virtual project for a company.

Definition of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Customer relationship management (CRM) refers that a system that can increase the customer loyalty and retain toward the company. Besides, CRM can understand the customer expectation to the products or services of the company and it will achieve the customer satisfaction. Greenberg (2001) stated that before develop this project, the company have to understand the customer changing in nature behavior. The project of CRM will comes out many benefit for the company such as positive toward the company, gain higher profitability, customer retention and loyalty, cost reduction (Amofah & Ijaz, 2005). From the research of Khalifa and Liu (2001) that CRM can be indicate as very important project for a company because some of the company will develop budget around or more than RM 10 million. To develop this project, customer service is a virtual component of CRM.

Definition of Customer Services

Customer service is one of the organizational process in the growing stage and attracting more business opportunities to increase the profitability (Akbar, M. M. & Parvez, N., 2009). Nowadays, the rapid development of social network was bring the customer service into the another stage. The company need to make the change and respond to the change of the tremendous. The customer can get more and more information about the company. Before customer services through the social media, the customer services already exist on the market. They use telephone to carry out the customer services but the customer cannot get the virtual satisfy and may not imagine for the product of the customer services describe. After customer services through the social media, most of the company has start to create an account on social media.

Next, customer services can help to resolve the problem oversea. Through the social media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) the company can overcome the culture with another countries company. The company will develop different language for other countries webpage. For instant, IPhone Company in different countries has develop different version to gain the customer more easier understand their company. Besides, this can help the company get the opportunities to dialogue with between customer and business instead of one-side communication such as advertising (Vinnie, P. & Ayuna, C, 2010). Some of the companies will pay a lot of money to design their own specialized Youtube page (Kari, P. & Marcos, A, 2010).

Some of the company may only focus on social media as customer service such as Telekom Malaysia (TM) which was only focus on Twitter. The advantage for TM focus only on one social media that they can pay all the attention to that social media and the reply will be more standardize. Customer will not feel clutter to find the way to contact customer services. The disadvantage that TM only rely on one social media and it cannot reach large public as the people not have the account of twitter. Customer will get trouble to communicate with company once Twitter webpage getting system down.

Besides, the company or supplier can sell their item through social network. Therefore the customer may compare the quality of the product and services through social networking. In fact, company can build more closer and profitable relationship with customer throughout the social networking. The company and customer have better relationship will bring more benefit for company. Social networking is a suitable framework for customer service. It also provide the platform for the customer chat or communicate on personal level (Assaad, W & Gomez, J, M., 2011). Other than that, company also create the platform and opportunities for customer to direct respond about the product or services to company. The company also can get the first respond to improve their service. For example, customer A go to Restaurant Sushi King Klang having the dinner, but the service of employee is bad and the environment of that restaurant unsanitary so the customer may go to email the customer service of Restaurant Sushi King to make a complaint. The company can improve the health of the restaurant and give the training for their employee. Instead of the customer A post something bad towards the company. If the customer post that bad status, the sales of the restaurant will be effected.

Customer service through the social media that will make the interactive of customer and company in the stage of visible. Public can make the research about the interest company. Social network have the power of informing and influencing people purchase decision (Bashar,A &Ahmad, I &Wasiq, M., 2012). Company make the publicity for the new product or services to market through Facebook. Customer can straightly write the comment under the photos, which will be visible for all the public. Once the bad comments are not solved by the company, other of the customers may stand the perspective before having the product of service. Nowadays, many users will trust their peer opinion who gain the product and services more than advertising or marketing strategies.  

Furthermore, customer service need provide good service. Customer service is to assist customer to answer the questions and offering a help for customer. Customer services create the first impressions for the customer to justify whether the company is good or bad. From a government website state that employee of the customer services need to have the attitudes that enjoy helping people, greeting the customer and care for them, have to give the equal treatment for all the customer. The important component is have to clearly understand customer with special needs (Government of South Australia, 2006).

Conclusion

In conclusion, customer is the core of a company who will affect the operation of the company. The company develop the Customer relationship management (CRM) that the project to more understand the nature of customer which can increase the customer loyalty and customer satisfaction toward the company. Customer services is the most effective methods to achieve the goals of CRM. A good customer service need to know customer expectations, customer satisfaction, and outcomes of poor customer service and advantage of good customer services. Besides, a company have a good customer services will increase the status of company.

Bibliography

Akbar, M. M. & Parvez, N. (2009). Impact of Service Quality, Trust, and Customer Satisfaction on Customers Loyalty. ABAC Journal, Vol. 29(1), 24-38

Amofah, P. & Ijaz A. (2005). Objectives, Strategies and Expected Benefit of Customer Rleationship Management (Master Thesis, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden) Retrieved from: https://pure.ltu.se/ws/files/30961216/LTU-PB-EX-0503-SE.pdf

Assaad. W & Gomez. J. M. (2011). Social Network in marketing (Social Media Marketing): Opportunities and Risks. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT), Vol. 2(1), 13-22 DOI: 10.5121/ijmpict.2011.2102

Bashar,A & Ahmad, I & Wasiq, M. (2012). Effectiveness of Social Media As A Marketing Tool: An Empirical Study. International Journal of Marketing, Financial Services & Management Research, Vol.1 (11), 88-99

Government of South Australia. (2006). Volunteering S. A. Inc: customer Services. Retrieved from: http://www.ofv.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/8151/customer-service-presentation-notes.pdf

Greenberg, P. (2001). CRM at the Speed of Light: Capturing and Keeping Customers in internet Real Time. Berkeley: Osborne/McGraw-Hill.

Kari, P. & Marcos, A. (2010). Social Media and Companies. Student Journal of Media Literacy Education 2010, Vol.1 (1), 6-12

Khalifa, M. & Liu, V. (2003). Determinants of Satisfaction at Different Adoption Stages of Internet-Based Services. Journal of the Association for Information Systems. 4 (5), 206-232.

Vinnie, P. & Ayuna, C. (2010). Social Media and Companies. Student Journal of Media Literacy Education 2010, Vol.1 (1), 6-12

Yamamoto, A. P. (n.d.). Understanding Customer Value Concept: Key to success.