Social media use for CRM and business performance satisfaction: The moderating roles of social skills and social media sales intensity

Abstract

The present study explored the association between the intensity of social media use for customer relationship management (CRM) and the business performance satisfaction of Thai microenterprises. The survey data were collected from 217 owners of the small shops at major marketplaces in Thailand. The results from partial least square regression analysis showed that the entrepreneurs who used social media intensively for CRM tended to report higher satisfaction with their business performance. Furthermore, the results from the moderating effect analyses found that the positive relationship between social media use intensity for CRM and business performance satisfaction tended to be significantly higher for the entrepreneurs who exhibited lower levels of social competency in business, as well as for the companies that generated more sales from social media. The main findings of this research provide practical implications for microenterprise entrepreneurs. Given that communication in social media tends to involve less interpersonal interactions than face-to-face communication, using social media for CRM activities might be essential in enabling entrepreneurs with low social competency to interact with customers to improve customer satisfaction. Also, this finding implies that using social media for CRM tends to be more crucial for companies that primarily target customers who are social media users.