Social media as a customer relationship management tool within the building and construction industry

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how builders can use social media to manage customer relationships. This research uses semi-structured interviews with accredited building practitioners to explore the extent of SCRM use, the ways builders are using SCRM, and the factors that influence social media use. The study found that builders are using social media to manage customer relationships, but to a limited extent. There is a lack of SCRM strategy and builders are reluctant to use customer value segmentation. Builders are indifferent to using SCRM to move away from legal-centric relationships, and have difficulty establishing meaningful relationships through social media. The 'risk of defamation' and a 'lack of control' are factors that influence builders' use of social media. There is also some support for 'perceived trustworthiness' as a factor that inf1uences SCRM use and acceptance. A limitation of this research is that it only explores the builder-client relationship from the builders' perspective. More research is required to explore SCRM from both the customer and practitioner perspective. The practical implications are that builders can consider two main issues for improving social media effectiveness: a lack of SCRM strategy, and the lack of customer-value segmentation. The unique contribution of this research lies in the application of SCRM to the building and construction industry. There are also very few studies which have focused on the builder-client relationship from a marketing perspective; this study provides a base from which to explore this topic further.