An Empirical Study on Social Customer: Evidence from Social CRM

The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of the social customers' behavior by identifying the factors that influence their decision to participate in social customer relationship management (CRM) programs. A social behavioral model (SBM) was developed in this study. The construction of the SBM was partly based on two popular models: technology acceptance model and theory of planned behavior. The data (n=305) were analyzed with exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and path analysis. Attitude and usefulness, and perceived risk are the two most influential factors in SBM. Three other variables—social identity, ease and control, and enjoyment and satisfaction—affected intention indirectly. Subjective norm and image did not affect intention directly or indirectly; therefore, these two variables were dropped from the SBM. The resultant conceptual framework provides a stronger theoretical basis for understanding the behavioral aspect of social CRM implementation.