Customer experience management in social media : An empirical study of how Swedish e-commerce companies work with customer experience management in social media

Abstract: The increased use of social media has enhanced the way consumers make their everyday purchasing decisions. This has increased the importance of e-commerce companies to be present on social media. E-commerce companies that now use the capabilities of social media have led to the emergence of social commerce. Social media gives mutual gain for customers and companies but has also increased the amount of interactions e-commerce companies need to manage their customer experience (CE) in. As social media gives more control over the CE to the customer themselves it now becomes a challenge in maintaining the seamless CE that is demanded by the customer.  Customer experience management (CEM) is becoming a priority for managers and one of the most promising marketing approaches. CEM is about using customer insight to achieve long term customer loyalty. To gain competitiveness on the market and increase profitability e-commerce companies now need to provide a memorable CE in social media. Despite this, most companies have failed to implement CEM initiatives. There is moreover a lack in research on the combination of the topics of social commerce and CEM. This makes it highly relevant to conduct a study with the intention of answering the following research question: How can Swedish e-commerce companies work with their customer experience management on social media? This study conducted a multiple case study on Swedish e-commerce companies to investigate how Swedish e-commerce companies use CEM on their social media and what challenges and opportunities that exist. The study uses an inductive research approach with an element of deduction where the theoretical framework presents theories in the field of social media, social media marketing strategy (SMMS) and CEM. The study conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with seven marketing managers. The respondents' answer showed that feelings and company culture worked as strategic directions when creating CE that in turn created engaged customers that through two-way interactions gave valuable insight for the company to use for improving their CEM. Challenges for the management was the decreased attention span of customers and an ever-changing context on platforms while there were opportunities in social listening software and the possibility to forecast upcoming trends using the data gathered from social media.