infoarch

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, wh...

I enjoyed reading this HBR post  Focus on Your Customer's Customer by Kerry Bodine . But I wondered, isn't social media also pushing this and making this easier (and more important) than ever? In the past B2B companies hardly knew what the actual users/customers of their products thought of them. The Sales reps of B2B talked with DMU's (decision making units), not customers. Now via social media B2B sales can look past the DMU's and listen to the actual users/customers and use the data for product innovation, better customer service, different sales, etc. Kerry replied to my comment and I'm happy to say she agrees! Do you agree? I'd love to hear your thoughts.