Social customer relationship management: a customer perspective

Abstract

While the construct customer brand engagement is gaining magnitude in hospitality studies, this study establishes positive word of mouth and brand loyalty as relevant outcomes of customer brand engagement. It proposes and empirically tests a model which is underpinned by social customer relationship management theory. By means of survey questionnaires, data was obtained from 373 customers from hotels, in the island of Mauritius. The proposed model was tested using the AMOS version 22, structural equation modelling software. Results indicate that social customer relationship management activities can trigger service process innovation which in turn leads to customer engagement with the hotel brand. However, the relationship between use of social media platforms and positive word of mouth was not supported. The current study brings interesting theoretical contributions and it further serves as a benchmark to hotel managers for the effective implementation of a SCRM strategy.