4 Great Apps for Getting to Know Your Customers

In business, as in life, the better you are at getting to know your customers. the more rewarding that relationship will be for both parties. This has always been a critical element in sales. Myself and my prospective customer may have much in common but, short of living together, what are the real chances of ever really discovering these shared interests? Minimal. It takes a lot of time, the interviewing skills of a police detective, and pure dumb luck. The simple fact is that you could go all your lives not knowing that you both share a love of underwater basket weaving. In the meantime, opportunities may be (likely are) lost.

Fortunately, social media now has the very real potential of providing us with actionable insights into any individuals’ likes, dislikes, wants, needs, and desires. Every social network can play an integral part and provide you with distinct windows into others’ lives. While LinkedIn is really great for understanding what makes people tick professionally, it generally will not tell us much about that individual’s personal hot buttons. However, Facebook and Instagram will as well as a variety of other socially focused networks.

The real challenge comes when we attempt to manage, let alone aggregate, the information available from each network. Moving from tab to tab across the social divide is simply not a practical, workable, option for most. You can do this, of course but, most of us would be classified as universally lazy in this regard. Fortunately, efficiency (working smart) trumps elbow grease every time. Here are four really great apps that can help us along the way and all are either free or very low cost.

SweetSpot

SweetSpot is a hybrid news, company profile, key company personnel, and social stream application that allows you to focus on specific industries as well as specific companies. SweetSpot is probably best designed for major account reps or those who wish to break into major accounts. In terms of company profiles that are offered, think stock exchange. If they are publicly traded, there is a good chance that they are available. SweetSpot is designed and optimized for iPad.

In can be a newsreader for both companies as well as industries. When viewing companies, you can also see tweets from top executives as well as a complete company profile (and identified major competitors), who the top executives are, people from this company that are a part of your LinkedIn or Twitter network, and recent Twitter updates from those people. You can also take and keep notes. Finally, as this is an application specifically designed for salespeople, the “Sales Tips” tab will take you to some curated articles regarding this noble profession.

Refresh

Refresh is a very unusual app that is currently only available for the iPhone (it will also run on your iPad but, is not tablet optimized) although an Android app is under development. Refresh connects to your calendar and will then automatically create a client dossier for you and generate a notification of its readiness approximately 20 minutes prior to your meeting. This alone is unique and the timing is perfect. I don’t have to remember to call it up and 20 minutes keeps things fresh and up-to-date. The dossier is filled with simply great relationship-building tidbits including:

Recently shared photos
Their work history
A LinkedIn summary
Recent social shares
Correspondence and meetings
Share connections
Who they interact with
Questions you might ask them about social shares
Company info
Sports and leisure
Works and authorships

Now … Refresh is doing this for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest. Yikes! You can even write notes, email their dossier to somebody else, or schedule follow-up calls and … lots more! The key to effective being able to leverage the power of Refresh is to not be a lazy calendar person (like me). This means to be sure to fully identify people who will be attending your meeting and to do so in the appropriate field area. I.e., not “Fred” in the “notes” section.

Contacts+

Think of Contacts+ as a replacement for your existing contacts application on your iPhone or Android phone. What is very cool is that not only can you place phone calls or SMS messages (and Google Hangouts), Contacts+ has the capability to display profiles and streams from Twitter, Facebook. LinkedIn, and Google+. It even allows for a Google Search and Google Maps.

Everything you need to know is now displayed in one neat little portable package!

Nimble Social CRM

Nimble has been designed to be a relationship manager as much as it is a CRM. Nimble will automatically discover and add social network profiles for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and FourSquare. Additional networks including Instagram are planned. What about LinkedIn? Well, LinkedIn recently made a decision to remove access to their platform from all CRMs, and a number of other sales related applications, with the exception of Salesforce and Microsoft. It is what it is.

Based on an individual’s social networks, and also dependent on whether or not you are formally connected to this person (including their individual privacy settings on their individual social accounts), Nimble creates the smart summary that is shown in the image above and will also display social profiles and social streams from each network.

Let’s recap!

When you aggregate an individual’s social profiles, and you take the time to focus on and to explore this one person only, the magic starts to happen. Let me repeat … Take the time to focus on and to explore this one person only!

You will now be able to create an extensive composite profile on this individual and that will be both personal and professional. We begin to understand their whole-life story. I can look at your LinkedIn profile and see your work history but, Facebook and Instagram will show me how you are when you are away from work. You dig fishing? Me too and I have some great spots that you may wish to explore! Hell, I’ll even take you there!

This post was brought to you by IBM for Midsize Business and opinions are my own. To read more on this topic, visit IBM’s Midsize Insider. Dedicated to providing businesses with expertise, solutions and tools that are specific to small and midsized companies, the Midsize Business program provides businesses with the materials and knowledge they need to become engines of a smarter planet.

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Craig M. Jamieson

Managing Member at Adaptive Business Services

Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. Adaptive Business Services provides solutions related to the sales professional. We are a Nimble CRM Solution Partner. Craig also conducts training and workshops primarily in social selling and communication skills. Craig is also the author of "The Small Business' Guide to Social CRM", now available on Amazon!