While the new technology era have offered a wide range of new possibilities for companies to interact with their customers, it has also brought the challenges of meeting customer expectations to a new level. With the introduction of Social Media, both possibilities and challenges have been enhanced and the need for solutions has increased. In order to contribute to the establishment of these solutions, this thesis set out to investigate how Danish hotel can integrate Social Media in order to improve their customer relations.
In order to support this investigation, three research questions were developed. This chapter will conclude on the findings of the thesis and answer the research questions and problem statement.
As the scientific approach to this thesis is based on the hermeneutic paradigm, the conclusions of the thesis have been reached by a continuous interpretation and questioning of the findings. The inductive reasoning approach has influenced the empirical research through the nature of discovery, thus allowing the creation of new knowledge and perspectives.
The initial part of the empirical research for this thesis consisted of a comprehensive literature review which established an understanding of the traditional strategies of Customer Relations Management and Social Media as well as the new perspective of social CRM. The literature review illustrated the need for an integrated approach of implementation of Social Media in CRM and concluded that the main reason for unsuccessful implementation is the lack of understanding of the essence of relationships as well as the technological revolution, known as the Groundswell. Subsequently, the theoretical framework was presented. The theory chosen for the analysis was the framework of technology acceptance. The empirical analysis of the thesis was thus built around the Technology Acceptance Model by Davis (1989), including the additional determiners of Web 2.0, Familiarity, Care, Information Sharing and Perceived Trustworthiness as suggested by Askool & Nakata (2011). This contemporary version of the model was referred to as the Social Technology Acceptance Model (STAM) and created a theoretical foundation for the analysis of the acceptance of Social Media, including the analysis of the internal relations between the determiners as well as their relations to the Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease Of Use. Based on the literature review and the theoretical framework, four hypotheses were developed in order to select and illustrate the most relevant issues detected and analyzed. All of the four hypotheses were confirmed, which indicates a correlation between the existing literature and theory and the findings of this study. For more information of the confirmation of the hypotheses, please see section 5.6.
75 The second part of the thesis consisted of the analysis of the empirical data collected. The empirical data was collected through interviews with hotel managers as well as online observations of Social Media Activity on Facebook and Tripadvisor. The empirical data revealed some interesting perspectives on the acceptance of Social Media implementation in CRM.
Initially, the online observations revealed that the extent to which Social Media has been adopted by the hotels of Copenhagen is very diverse. While some hotels have adopted the use of Social Media to a great extent, others have very little activity on the Social Media sites. The data collected through the interviews revealed that the reason for this diversity in activity levels is due to the lack of understanding of the technological advances of Social Media. Also, the differentiated conception of the sufficiency of resources among the managers was found to highly influence the activity levels. Both the interviews and the online observations revealed that the attitude towards the technological acceptance of Social Media was very diverse. The reason for this diversity was found to be due to differentiated conceptions of the technological challenges and opportunities of Social Media rather than the actual technological capabilities of the managers.
Secondly, the analysis of the thesis confirmed the shift of power to the customers which represents several threats and challenges for companies whether or not they participate in the social dialogue. The biggest challenge of Social Media is the involuntariness which is found to make some hotel managers give up in advance rather than pursuing the successful integration of Social Media. Through the empirical research it was found that while Facebook represents both opportunities and challenges, Tripadvisor is seen mainly as a threat. The online observations proved that the information shared on Facebook, both by hotels and customers, tended to be positive information while all the negative information could be found on Tripadvisor in the shape of consumer reviews. User-generated content, including consumer reviews, proved to be a big threat to the hospitality industry; however, the analysis of this thesis found that correct management of the Social Media sites may turn these threats into opportunities by using the sites to respond to the information shared by the customers in a caring and familiar way which then establishes improved relations with the customers. The interaction between hotels and their customers is widely used on Facebook, while the consumer reviews on Tripadvisor are rarely responded to, thus accepting the threats of the reviews rather than treating them. It can thus be concluded that there is a long way to go for the insecurity of Social Media to be treated.
Finally, based on these findings above it was thus concluded that the insecurity about Social Media is due to the lack of a common definition of Social Media, including the specific technological advances and challenges as well as the lack of a common level of expected resources needed for successful
76 implementation and maintenance of a Social Media site or application. While there is an obvious interest in the opportunities of Social Media in the Danish hotel industry, many hotel managers seem to make the common mistake of viewing Social Media as a technological tool rather than integrating it in a strategy which includes guidelines for both the utilization of the opportunities as well as the treating of threats and challenges. Thus, in order for Danish hotels to successfully implement Social Media in order to improve their customer relations, the level of implementation must be defined in order to define the guidelines of an appropriate strategy. This strategy must acknowledge that social CRM is driven by interaction and dialogue and that it is the social relations between the hotels and its customers which must be established and maintained in order to benefit from the social aspect of the technological revolution.
77