Facebook as your Customer Relationship Manager
Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. If you aren’t using one of these social media platforms, now is a good time to start, even if you aren’t big on online socializing. Using social media can help with keeping in touch with your customers and associates. This post explains how.
About a decade ago, a friend bragged about a new phone he just bought, that can hold up to 300 contacts in his address book. This sounds funny when thinking about it in 2009. He then showed me that except for name and phone number you can type in additional details such as city, birthday and mail. To demonstrate the abilities of the new gadget (I remind the readers this is 1999 we are talking about) he showed me a memo the phone just made about one of his customers. The customer’s daughter just turned 16, and my friend called to congratulate his customer for the sweet sixteen birthday party they are holding. We can learn 2 things from this ‘ancient’ story:
- Know your customers – they will return a favor by doing business with you again.
- In 2009 there is no need to input your phone manually, we have technology for that!
Before reviewing the possibilities with advanced mobile devices such as Iphone and Blackberry, lets take a closer look at Facebook and LinkedIn and their immediate business added value. Befriending online with business associates and customers, but not too soon, can let you take part in their lives. Choose to use it wisely, and you will enjoy a constant and fruitful relationship with your clients. Instead of relating to your business alone, you can connect to your clients about their personal interests, hobbies and important events such as birthdays, anniversaries and other social gatherings.
In the past, you would keep logs or lists of customers, birthday details and addresses that would consume a lot of time to manage. Today, Facebook has an application for almost every smartphone: Blackberry,Iphone, HTC, etc. that will notify you with important dates related to your connections. The new Facebook app for Blackberry, can connect automatically to your calendar and address book. Twitter has also hundreds of applications for almost every existing phone. LinkedIn can also be used from most phones.
We are not always near a desktop, or a notebook, but if we can see what our business connections are up to, or what they are celebrating, we can choose to use it. We can make a call to congratulate an associate on receiving an award, text a client on his birthday and send an email with an article that would interest a customer that just tweeted on the subject. All these options are easy to use today, and were not available 3-4 years ago. All the examples I’ve mentioned can be available using notifications on Facebook mobile applications, and any Twitter app such as the popular Tweetdeck (on Iphone also). The Tweetdeck, by the way, has a new version that includes feeds not only from twitter as before, but also facebook, myspace and linkedin, which means you can enjoy your feeds and text from all those applications in one place. An advantage for all those having a hard time following Facebook, Twitter and linkedin togather.
Even if social media doesn’t interest you that much, you should still consider it as a working tool for you. LinkedIn can be your professional database, Facebook can be your clients’ event notifier and Twitter even just for short and immediate direct messaging to clients.
For a kick start:
facebook latest app for Blackberry
