The Effects of Customer Interaction Experiences in Corporate SNSs on Customer Learning Benefits and Customer Trust in the Firm

기업 SNS에서 고객의 상호작용 경험이 고객의 학습 혜택과 기업에 대한 고객 신뢰에 미치는 영향

Many firms have been utilizing SNSs such as Facebook and Twitter actively in order to boost interactions with customers that promote product and service innovations and effective marketing. Although positive outcomes of the customer interactions in SNSs are expected, there exist few studies on the effects of interactions between customers and firms in the SNS context. This study empirically examines how customer experiences in multi-dimensional interactions (i.e., pragmatic, sociability, usability, and hedonic interaction) in corporate SNSs influence customer trust in the firm, and how customer learning benefits are associated with firm benefits such as gaining customer trust. The results indicate that all four dimensions of customer interactions in SNSs have significant effects on customer learning benefits, which in turn significantly influence customer trust in the firm. Meanwhile, the results reveal that there are also direct relationships between specific dimensions of customer interactions in SNSs and the two dimensions of customer trust (i.e., ability-based and benevolence/integrity-based). Based on the findings, this study diagnoses the status of corporate SNSs in terms of collaboration with customers and provides practical implications for firms which attempt to capitalize on the multi-dimensional customer interactions in SNSs and to facilitate innovative activities with customers.