THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT; A CASE OF AIRLINE INDUSTRY CUSTOMERS

Abstract

The current study is about the effect of social media on customer relationship management program in the context of the airline passengers. For this purpose, the study uses a model of social media characteristics which consist of five aspects namely connectedness, community, conversation, openness, and participation. The outcome variable in this study is the customer relationship management program (loyalty program). The adapted methodology is quantitative approach, cross sectional survey design. The data collection is based on participants from Pakistan (n=159). The key findings of the study are that social media characteristics including participation (?=.203, P<0.05); openness (?=.423, P<0.05); conversation (?=.277, P<0.05); and community (?=.523, P<0.05) exert a positive and significant influence, while, connectedness (?=-.098, P>0.05) exert a negative and insignificance influence on customer relationship management program. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that social media characteristics are important in fostering a favorable customer relationship management program. Keywords: Customers, Social Media, Openness, Community, Online, Customer Relationship Management, Airlines.