CRM is built on the premise of fostering long term relationships. Often however, personal information on prospects, customers, vendors, partners and suppliers eludes us. Most CRM systems have static information. The resulting profiles inevitably lack information about hobbies, interests, and relationships outside our native CRM. Applications and networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace are changing all that.
Imagine being able to find relevant information about a new prospect instantly and before making your first sales call. You can discover common bonds such as a sports team, music, favorite books and restaurants. Clearly the probability of a successful sales call increases significantly when we are able to establish and share interests.
In a similar way an existing customer who has a relationship with a new prospect can help us establish rapport and increase our success rate. Simply we can ask our client for an introduction. As we know referrals are the strongest means to new business.
Faceforce for “Appexchange complements traditional CRM data with dynamically updated personal data and photos. The integration pulls Facebook profile information into your Salesforce Account, Lead, and Contact records in real time, providing a full view of customers, prospects, and business associates.”
The LinkedIn Company Insider widget allows you to paste a Javascript into your HTML page to instantly discover relationships. Try it and also use the script for your own site.
See the LinkedIn Widget page for more information
Example HTML using the popup method:
<html>
<head>
<script src="http://www.linkedin.com/companyInsider?script&useBorder=yes" language="javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
LinkedIn <span id="li"></span> is a wonderful networking tool for professionals.
<script type="text/javascript">
new LinkedIn.CompanyInsiderPopup("li","LinkedIn");
</script>
</body>
</html>