Att bygga kundrelationer med hjälp av communities
MemotoKundrelationerCRMSocial-CRMDigital innovationProdukt-centrerade communitiesDrivkrafterStyrningsmekanismer
The advancements in digital technology and its availability contribute to the transfer of companycentricproduct development and value creation to networks or communities. It also changes the basisfor creation of customer relationships as described in previous research on Customer relationshipmanagement (CRM). The purpose of this case study was to gain an understanding of how companieslike our case study object Memoto who developed a physical product which gets added-value fromdigital product-related services looks upon product-centered communities as a way of buildingcustomer relationships. How Memoto looks upon incentives for participation in product-centeredcommunities was also examined.Our research indicated that firms in the start-up phase (which Memoto was when this study wasconducted) initially want to have more control over the process of innovation and hence have directcontact with end-customers. The reason for this is because they see a need to define the basis forfurther innovation work. According to research on corporate use of online communities for externalinnovation it is important to define the starting point for the work of a community to give it a basicstructure and prevent external innovation initiatives from ending up in chaos. Memoto saw the value ofan external development community for the creation of a diverse range of qualitative digital productrelatedservices, but it was less obvious that they saw how this may change the creation of customerrelationships. Our understanding of this was that they had not thought about how the involvement of anexternal development community and users incentives for community participation can help createstronger relationships with end-customers.