Customer & Vendor Relationship Management
Customer Relationship Management according to Edenberg is “an operational, transactional approach to customer management that was focused around the customer-facing departments—sales, marketing, and customer service.” Customer relationship management is also a program that has been externally facing operational greatness excellence (Edenberg). Once a company has developed specific strategy and able to plan programs accordingly, applying defined and newly defined methods and appropriate technology would support the ability to manage relationships. “The customer’s benefit, theoretically, was better service, attention, and support from the company—and, if the company used a sophisticated enough system, optimized deals that were personalized to the customer’s likes, which of course, led to more and higher value purchases by the customer (Edenberg).
Companies like Disney thinks that moving from customer relationship management to customer managed relationship suggests that it’s a “slight nuance regarding their philosophy to guests whom invite them into their lives and ultimately manages their presence and relationship with customers” (Disney). To answer the question of what the relationship between Social Customer Relationship Management and empowered customers is- one must first define the two terms. So according to Jacob Morgan of Social Media Examiner Social Customer Relationship Management is “a strategy that is often supported by various tools and technologies. The strategy is based around customer engagement and interactions, with transactions being a byproduct.” Often social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and YouTube are examples of “various tools and technologies” (Morgan) that engages customers to be interactive with a company or vice versa.
Then, the Empowered Customer term is “a mental state usually accompanied by a physical act which enables a consumer or a group of consumers to put into effect their own choices through demonstrating their needs, wants and demands in their decision-making with other individuals or organizational bodies in the marketplace” (Len Tiu Wright’s). Now, the relationship between social Customer Relationship Management and the Empowered Customer is a developing one. Social media now gives both parties a platform to interact with each other and in turn this creates customer relationship management. If a consumer is complaining or requests feedback on a certain product/service this is an alternative to manage those interactions. The Empowered consumer sees the social media side of customer relations as the “forms of media in which we interact with them are converged.” This is can challenge marketers to work on living up to that expectation. Marketers know that a converged media content strategy that includes earned, paid and owned content is needed to connect to customers in today's digitally-savvy world”( Afshar). The Social Customer Relationship Management and the Empowered Customer’s shared relationship feed off one another because they both need each other to create better service and satisfy both parties. The Empowered Customer becomes increasingly empowered and when they can give feedback of a product or service in an attempt to improve or sustain its value. Nonetheless, the Social Customer Relationship Management sector of any company needs the Empowered Customer to gain leverage on its products and services for improvement. If the Empowered customer isn’t providing its enthusiasm, feedback or reviews of the product or service there isn’t any way for potential buys to gain insight on the product from someone who has experienced using the product or service.
A company like Applebee’s restaurant incorporates Social Customer Relationship Management by
