Should Foursquare head into the CRM-market?


Some time ago I wrote about the usefulness of Foursquare. At that time I shared I use Foursquare for fun, but it’s not really useful to me.

Just recently something popped up that does show Foursquare is useful to me. Part of my work is to visit customers and potential customers. Some of the customers aren’t ready to do business with us at the time I visit them and ask me to come back later. So, after some time, I visit them again. Of course the company I work for has a CRM tool, but it’s a pain to go to that system before you visit the customer to check when you were there the last time and what you discussed. I usually just look up my notes stored somewhere on my iPad.

But it is useful to know when I was there the last time. When I arrive at a customer I check in to Foursquare. And what does it say? ‘Welcome back! Last time you were here was in <date>.’ The interesting thing is the conversation with the customer almost always starts with: ‘Good to have you back, when was the last time we met?’ Foursquare helps me answer that question.

Which makes me wonder. Isn’t Foursquare a great CRM tool? Isn’t Foursquare the perfect place to store (and share?) information about customers? Currently this is not possible in Foursquare. You can share a tip, which is public. Not good for customer data. But if you could, Foursquare could not only say ‘welcome back’, but also tell you what you discussed the last time you were there.

Does this make sense? Curious to hear your thoughts.

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