Successful customer knowledge management implementation through social media capabilities

Abstract

Purpose

Nowadays, the recent advances in information and communications technology and the advent of Web 2.0 technology have resulted in the increasing popularity of social media and provided enterprises and companies with new horizons in establishing an effective significant relationship with clients. Despite the recognized importance of social media in knowledge management (KM) and customer relationships, there is not any research to identify social media capabilities related to customer knowledge management (CKM). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to recognize the social media capabilities related to CKM effectively.

Design/methodology/approach

To obtain research objectives, literature review, focus group method and expert interview were applied to identify and categorize social media capabilities. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) also used to prioritize capabilities important.

Findings

The results indicate social media capabilities such as conversation capability, sharing capability, groups/community capability, relationship capability, speed and ease of access for the public are the main capabilities related to exploit customer knowledge and manage it successfully.

Research limitations/implications

The results highlight the different social media capabilities for CKM approach which will enhance customer insight and personalized services. Because of the newness of CKM and social media implementation in Iranian firms, empirical study was not conducted for a better understanding of their business value.

Originality/value

The main innovation of this study is identifying the social media capabilities related to CKM and prioritizing them which allow managers to select the most appropriate social media tools based on these results.

Citation

Kargaran, S., Jami Pour, M. and Moeini, H. (2017), "Successful customer knowledge management implementation through social media capabilities", VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems, Vol. 47 No. 3, pp. 353-371. https://doi.org/10.1108/VJIKMS-11-2016-0066