Interactivity Quality and Consumer-Brand Relationship in Vitural Brand Communities

As social networking media continue to grow in popularity, the firm-centric CRM is confronting with new challenges created by the pervasive consumer networking on social media. In essence, the performance of CRM is contingent on whether consumers are willing to engage in a relationship with the firm. In order to meet the development of consumer-based social networking, firms pervasively create brand communities to build and manage the relationship with consumers. Consumers may interact with companies and other consumers in company sponsored brand community. Interactivity occurs at the Business to Customer (B2C) and Customer to Customer (C2C) levels. Interactivity is also established with a focal brand and partner brands in virtual brand communities. Interactivity quality involves the perception of interaction at the B2C and C2C levels in brand communities. The paper proposes that interactivity quality has a positive effect on relationship quality for a focal brand and partner brands. In addition, it proposes that relationship quality has a positive effect on relationship strength.