Guest Post: Yiwen Sun

Yiwen is one of Chris' Fall 2011 Professional Speaking students at Carnegie Mellon. Here she writes about virtual communication.

Involve the virtual communication in customer relationship management

Do you enjoy shopping online without wandering around, checking packages feeling like you are always cared and then review for your own shopping experience on the website? It is really interesting to read others stories and share your own feelings with others. The comments on the website really matters our choice of purchase, because we are supposed to make smarter choice after preparation. To a certain extent, the influence of “people seem to like me” is really greater than the so called expertise. The social network seems to help the virtual conversation between customers. It is also a way for company to provide customer with better products and services. The company can view the feedback from their customer and give promotion and the conversation between customers will positively help others to better understand their products. The previous customer relationship management is changing to social customer relationship management based on the birth of a new technology “social network”.

Social customer relationship management (SCRM) is an addition to customer relationship management (CRM). The CRM is constructed on the technology of WEB 1.0, which only deal with the problem of read. It is a one-side communication – the company will post their information on the website and customer can read the information. The feature of this kind of technology is “present”. The SCRM is constructed on the technology of WEB 2.0, which resolve the problem of read and write. It is a two-way communication which really conducts a conversation. The customer makes use of the social network to engage in a virtual dialogue. The customer can interact with the company.

The development of virtual communication also changes the role of customer. In the past, the customers are regards as individuals or passive group. However, they serve as a partner in operation and even competitor currently. They comments on website of company, develop a virtual communication with other customer or the customer service. This significantly affect others decision. Under such background, the traditional way of purchase experience and operation approach revolute a lot (the previous way of exchange transit to the way of transaction). Now we are in the stage of interaction. People interact with each other and produce profit.

In my home country, I would like to view the comment and ranking of restaurant before I have dinner with others. The website of “www.dazhongdianping.com” also provides me with enough information. Some information is put into categories regarding different styles of cooking. I can make a good choice and know more about the specialty in the restaurant and enjoy a better experience. But sometimes I find difficulties in finding the question I really want. The information put onto the internet seems to lack integration. Maybe the next step for virtual communication is to not only conduct such kind of conversation to help customer better understanding the product and company better operate the customer management, but also try to integrate the information to make them more reasonable and effective.