Do you think of your call center as a business necessity? Or do you consider it a competitive weapon. Companies who view their call center operations as only a necessary part of conducting business are missing one of the best and least expensive ways to improve not just the bottom line but the top line also. Call centers are a wealth of information and are rife with opportunities for improving customer relationships, enhancing customer satisfaction—and increasing customer sales.

Traditional call centers were created to handle the increase in customers that technology helped to enable. As businesses grew and technology allowed them to reach beyond their immediate localities, companies added more and more customers, which, in turn, created the need to respond to their questions and issues. Initially, call centers were small and simple, consisting of agents, phones and terminals connected to rudimentary databases.

Additionally, the call center operated on local time or in some cases would include a contiguous time zone, if the customer base warranted. However, as the business grew, customers were added across several time zones and in some cases across them all. Globalization allowed a company’s footprint to extend far beyond its own borders and the call center evolved into the 24/7 contact center that is the standard today.

Forward-thinking companies began to see the call center not just as an expense but as an intimate view into their customer’s expectations, needs and preferences. The wealth and quality of the data coming in through calls to their agents could be leveraged to achieve two mission-critical tasks: keeping existing customers, and increasing existing customers’ sales. This was a revolutionary epiphany and if leveraged could dramatically change the business landscape. Unfortunately, there was no easy way to capture and harness the information coming in.

Enter the world of CRM software. CRM, or customer relationship management, is an umbrella term for the activities around identifying, acquiring, and retaining the best mix of customers for your business. CRM software or cloud-based applications integrate your back and front office systems and create a database of every aspect of your customer: contacts, purchases, information they’ve requested, technical support and complaints. This level of insight into your customer base, when analyzed, understood and leveraged, can have an incredibly favorable impact on your business.

For example, 24 Hour Fitness, a nation-wide chain of fitness facilities, used CRM applications run in the cloud to increase its sales by over 30 percent from the prior year. The software provided insight into customers in aggregate, not just at the store level, and allowed 24 Hour Fitness an understanding of its customers that ultimately produced a winning strategy for increasing sales. This, of course, is a testament to the revenue-enhancing side of CRM software, primarily the sales force automation component. On the expense side of the ledger, companies can use CRM applications to capture data and automate report generation—tasks that might once have been performed manually. Personnel can be freed up from the administrative tasks that render them less productive. And the IT team that would have handled your servers and hardware can be dramatically thinned when you move your data storage and workflows to the cloud.

Business intelligence creates a competitive advantage for companies who are open to new ways of viewing traditional operating components. CRM applications run in the cloud is one of those rare solutions that addresses both the revenue and expense side of your business. Capturing and successfully managing that priceless information can mean the difference between business success or business failure.

It’s no secret that tough economic times put The Fear into even the most forward-thinking entrepreneurs. Faced with plummeting revenues, they look for ways to slash their operational costs, delaying or eliminating altogether the implementation of new technologies that ironically are the very thing they need to push their companies back up on the profit fast track.

During industry downswings, strategic business management and planning is more critical than ever. Sales force automation (SFA) information systems are software or application packages that help companies succeed by streamlining and integrating sales, marketing, and support efforts. The basic SFA package is typically a contact management system that provides a business with the ability to track its customers at all phases of the sales cycle. Often this capacity is coupled with lead management capability. Other customizable functionalities may include variations on sales forecasting, order management and product information, organized by industry: SFA presets exist for small business, communications, financial services, healthcare and even the public sector.

The price of success? Much less than one might suppose thanks to web-hosted customer relationship management (CRM) systems—so-called “cloud computing”–whose on-demand pricing models save businesses money by allowing them to scale their own usage to customer demand.

Cloud computing is a term used to describe the delivery of software applications over the Internet, as opposed to software that is run using in-house servers. Cloud computing uses a subscription pricing model: a business only has to pay for the options it needs. Not only does this eliminate the huge up-front capital investment required by client/server-hosted software packages with similar functionality, it also eliminates the need for an IT support team. Software is up and running instantly—no more losing valuable contacts waiting around while the package is installed. Most sales force automation packages are customizable, meaning a company only has to pay for the lead management features that fit its own business model. Over the long run, huge cost savings accrue because businesses are freed from having to buy, install, maintain and/or upgrade hardware and software.

Papa Murphy’s is the largest take-and-bake pizza operation in the world and the most popular—every year since 2003, the franchise has won the coveted “Best Pizza Chain in America” award from Restaurants and Institutions Magazine. With 1,100 franchise operations in 34 states and Canada, the business is truly an American success story. But long after the business became successful, franchise management was still relying upon email and Excel spreadsheets to track their operations. This was costly, time-consuming and inefficient. Clearly what the company’s managers needed was close-to-instantaneous mobile access to data.

With help from a sales force automation partner, Papa Murphy’s implemented web-based reporting forms for its franchise managers that were speedy, flexible and easily scalable. This enabled the chain to keep track of customer relationships, franchise relationships and other crucial data. With 95 percent of its employees working remotely, they also needed apps that could be accessed remotely using BlackBerrys. Papa Murphy’s has witnessed better data quality, faster data capture and much less administrative hands-on time for its sales people—who can instead use the time they save to focus on face time with customers and finding more franchisees.

Satisfying customers and reducing costs at the same time may seem like a lofty goal to achieve, but with sales force automation applications that run in the cloud, your business can do it.

Your sales team is often your first point of contact with a potential customer. They’re the foot your company puts forward first; why not make sure that they’re the best?
The most effective way to support your sales team across all channels is to implement a sales management, or sales force automation, system. SFA provides your sales team with the foundation they need to approach customers with confidence and seal the deal.

More and more often these days, SFA is run over the Internet, or in the cloud. This enables sales reps out in the field, managers back at the office, and customer service agents working remotely to view and edit the same customer profiles and information. This means that everyone is kept in the loop, communications flow more smoothly, and productivity can soar.

With sales management software, the work of sales tracking, sales forecasting and prediction, lead routing and follow-up and knowledge sharing all become easier for everyone. Sales reps can work more effectively by using their BlackBerry or smartphone; they are empowered to close more deals when they have information at their fingertips. Their managers, in turn, can see the status of leads without having to wait for reps to report back. Visibility into the sales pipeline is enabled and automated with SFA applications run in the cloud.

Practical Application:
Q-go is an international B2B provider of communications software that promises a six-month ROI. How can they guarantee this? One way is by integrating all of their customer relationship management tasks and workflows, including sales force automation, knowledge management and contact management applications that run remotely. Since Q-go’s sales development group needs to share customer and lead information across all channels and geographic markets, it was crucial to upgrade from their previous spreadsheet-based system.

Their requirements were many: scalability to support extra staff when necessary; intuitive interfaces; customizability; rapid deployment; multilingual capabilities; and offline accessibility. Of course, the solution also needed to be cost-effective. After choosing a cloud-based CRM vendor, Q-go was able to roll out the new system to every sales development rep, sales exec and consultant within 30 days—without burdening its own internal IT department. Within a remarkable two weeks, the system had paid for itself through sales lead generation. Employees and investors are impressed with efficiency this CRM and sales management system have provided to Q-go.

As mentioned, sales reps are able to close more deals by having information about customer history and upcoming promotions at their fingertips. From customer information on file with the software knowledge base, they know exactly how to approach each customer and which deal to present. After closing the deal, it’s easier than ever to transmit sales efforts and contracts back to the office for faster processing.

Knowing what is happening with sales contracts and orders helps managers track the productivity of their sales team, and route leads more effectively. Management can be alerted to problems as they develop and come up with solutions before those problems cost money or become disasters.

Sales management software includes sales lead tools to help capture leads from information gathered at conventions and trade shows. It can help pair up the right sales person to approach a particular customer, based on data captured by the system. Qualifying leads and rating them will make calls more productive and eliminate wasted time on non-productive calls. The software can help nurture leads while maintaining security.

Put your best foot forward; put the power of cloud-based sales management applications to work for your sales team today.

Be vewy, vewy quiet—I’m hunting wabbits.

Actually, I’m not; but I do want to talk today about a certain form of tracking: sales tracking.

Sales tracking is a lot like wabbit hunting, because in both cases the pursuer is using their talents and experience to capture something elusive. And although Elmer Fudd had to use his (dubious) wits, a sales rep today can use sales tracking software to chase down leads and close more opportunities.

Part of an overarching customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force automation (SFA) system, sales tracking applications are easy to customize to address the company’s particular needs. Some companies need integration between global offices and multiple lead channels; others may focus more on capturing a complete snapshot of the customer in order to focus on making a personal connection. Either way, sales tracking apps can help capture, analyze, disseminate and utilize information, from a variety of sources to a plethora of departmental end-users.

Lead tracking software is useful for keeping track of prospective customers’ information in one convenient database location. Once there, it can be automatically evaluated and directed over to the representative best qualified to handle that type of lead. There are a number of factors that can be entered for the system to analyze as it determines which representative should receive that lead. This ability gives managers a way to prioritize efforts and put resources where they work best.

Sales representatives benefit from tracking software because it brings them leads which are matched with their expertise, increasing the chance of closing the deal. The mobility provided by cloud-based SFA apps means that no matter where the rep is, he or she has the same real-time access to data that the manager in the office does—or, for that matter, the picker-packer in the warehouse, the marketing manager traveling across the world, or the call center rep in Bangalore.

Practical Application:
Segway, the manufacturer of those nifty personal transporter (PT) devices, has some unique sales management needs. With a worldwide network of over 250 distribution points, including 120 dealers in North America, and a disparate network of direct and indirect sales forces, Segway needed a solution to effective manage all processes involved in the sales cycle, that was accessible to all channel partners. Regional managers needed to view data for forecasting purposes. Sales leads from the company’s Web site, trade shows, and advertising campaigns had to be effectively captured, routed and tracked. And an internal incentive program meant that retail sales had to be reported accurately, too.

Segway went with a cloud-based solution, including the establishment of a Partner Portal, where channel partners can access and manage the sales pipeline with comprehensive visibility. Additionally, marketing personnel can review each lead before assigning it, while tracking leads to specific campaigns that are easily assessed using custom applications. Segway can easily see, for example, how often leads from a particular Web site page convert into sales.

Constant updating of the database also makes it possible for managers to know exactly what stage their sales representative is at in the course of making a deal. The type of sales data passed back and forth will indicate whether a prospect is still just thinking about a deal—or actually making one. As soon as the deal is closed, the home office will know it.

Ongoing updating relieves everyone from tedious administrative chores. The collected information can be displayed at any time for managers or sales representatives. Instant updates are made through updates at any Internet-capable device like a computer, laptop, PDA or cell phone.

Keeping tabs on all the important deal making details can give your sales team an excellent advantage over the competition; it is like having an extra expert on the team. Managers are also never out of the loop, which makes the relationship between managers and sales representatives is improved.

Opportunities for the company to advance are possible with automatically generated reports regarding revenue, sales and projections. Sales representatives can look at previous deals, tracking and forecasting to find new opportunities for current efforts. Information sharing is also enhanced by sales tracking software.

Whether it’s sales or hasenpfeffer, efficient tracking is the way to get what you’re after. Use sales tracking software to boost your team’s efficiency and bag more revenue.

Being a salesperson is not easy—I did it for a summer in college, and let me tell you I’ve never worked harder. My hat’s off to sales rock stars, and even those who try their best but aren’t quite closing the deals. In this economy? Forget about it. These days, sales representatives sometimes have to chase almost 20 leads in order to make just one sale.

What would help is if the salesperson could do some of the legwork in advance—for example, being able to identify customers who are most likely to purchase the product. This would help reps avoid wasting precious resources, as well as cut down on time spent chasing fruitless opportunities. Sales force automation applications, as part of a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) strategy, allow companies to do just that: to identify the best opportunities and leads, and to approach them intelligently.

Gathering sales leads is simply not enough to close a deal. Studies show that 90 percent of the leads generated through marketing are never acted upon by the sales department. Salespeople must be diligent about analyzing the data to determine which leads offer enough potential to pursue. Sales tracking software allows companies to organize information gathered from a marketing campaign to determine which leads are worth pursuing. For instance, a company may launch a pay-per-click campaign or a Twitter campaign to generate traffic to the company’s website. The company collects the information about the customer and determines their level of interest and time frame for purchasing a product. The company can then determine how many, or which, resources to allocate to that customer in order to encourage a sale.

Many sales tracking software tools have data mining capabilities to generate leads for the customer; companies need to utilize these tools in order to find the best opportunities. These tools may also assist with sales forecasting and Return On Investment (ROI) measurement.

Collaboration tools allow sales people to share sales leads. Through collaboration, sales reps may be assigned to accounts in their area of expertise. By assigning sales people in this manner, key accounts or difficult accounts may close faster by an informed or seasoned sales person.

Sales lead management systems allow automated campaign execution. By executing an automated campaign, salespeople can expect their potential customers to receive emails, direct mail, phone calls, and other correspondence on a consistent basis. The system will automatically remind or execute the command on a specified date periodically. The sales team can simply follow up afterwards to determine if the customer received the correspondence.

Managers must make sales people accountable for the leads that they receive. By generating lead aging reports, viable lead reports, and campaign effectiveness reports, managers can determine which marketing campaigns generate the best leads. Additionally, managers can determine which sales people are more effective with managing leads, as well as the best place to invest marketing dollars.

Practical Application:
Tectum, Inc. is an Ohio company that specializes in noise control solutions, like acoustical ceilings or soundproof wall panels. Sales tracking software allowed the company to identify its leads and act upon those leads in a timely fashion. The software allowed them to record information and give accurate feedback to their customers. The sales people did not have a lot of time; therefore, they were able to streamline their lead gathering process. The sales tracking software significantly improved their process.

Because most sales people are, by the very nature of the job, on the road a great deal of the time, they need mobile solutions. Cloud-based applications that cater to the sales team are a fantastic solution, because they can be accessed by the rep using only an iPhone, BlackBerry, laptop, or any device with an internet connection. Cutting down on in-office administrative work and travel time, too, can help the salespeople focus on what they do best—meeting up with their leads, and turning them into customers.

People from my generation might remember the expression about the early bird getting the worm. Used to be that salespeople literally got up early, hit the road and started visiting clients. These days, things have changed. So how do you become an early bird in the computer era? One way is to adopt trending technologies, like cloud computing, that will enable your sales team to close deals with mobile CRM software.

Get the edge on the competition with fast response. It’s no longer enough to provide a good product or service at a competitive price; you have to be first, or one of the first, on the scene of the sale. Now that we can express ourselves with the click of a button or a mouse, and can change our Facebook status to reflect every change in mood, customers want things quickly. If they don’t get a fast response, they’ll move on. Heck, even the President of the United States relies on his BlackBerry for fast communication.

By equipping the sales force with mobile CRM software, they get full access to all the data needed to close deals. No one in sales—not the customer, not the salesperson—wants to wait longer than they have to; waiting for the laptop to get online or looking for lost notes prior to an important meeting just gets frustrating for everyone.

Mobile CRM, on the other hand, gives the sales representatives access to accounts, schedules, contact information, notes, customer details, previous sales, inventory, and even competitors’ prices. After the sale is complete, the rep has the ability to give real-time updates to the office, so that everyone can stay in the loop. This technology cuts downtime while it increases productivity. Customers get more valuable one-to-one time with less office detail time wasted.

Additionally, the sales staff can get little advantages that can help them beat out the competition, like being able to quickly review details about a customer and their sales history just prior to a personal meeting. They are better able to please the corporate office because it is so easy to do their reporting about customer calls they have just made.

For a case in point about the benefits of using mobile CRM, let’s look at the transportation and agriculture equipment supplier, Platinum Equipment. They track about 4,000 customer and prospect records on their mobile CRM software program. This allows their sales team to constantly update customer information about buying habits and equipment needs. This gives them a heads up when they have a special offer that a certain customer would most likely be interested in. The results? Higher sales figures by the field force. Sales representatives can also send their customers things like specification sheets and quotes on their BlackBerry smartphones.

In addition the sales force, those in the warehouse and main offices can keep tabs on inventory and orders with a good CRM system. Customers are always asking salespeople for discounts, and want to know if any sales are coming up. With a cloud-based CRM application, all relevant data can be accessed by the sales force, including future planning for promotions. Having this information available at the touch of a finger can make the difference between good customer relations and a sale, or a customer who will shop around for a better deal.

The better a company can enable their sales team to be flexible and have all the information they need when they need it, on the spot, the more deals those salespeople can close. Mobile CRM can really help your salespeople to be the early birds, and to get all the best worms—without too much digging.

The Internet has spoiled us rotten. It used to be that we had to physically travel, wait days for a letter to arrive, or hold lengthy phone conversations to be able to collaborate with colleagues who were located in a different city. Now we can chat online in real time, send documents via email, and even share videos and PowerPoint presentations. We can video conference. The next step? Being able to work on a document or spreadsheet at the same time.

Cloud computing applications allow several users to view and edit the same materials at the same time. This means that for every file folder full of revisions that used to be necessary, we now have just one document—it’s always up-to-date, automatically saved and accessible 24/7. Yet these collaboration tools also allows us to view revisions when necessary. It’s the best of both worlds.

These benefits particularly extend to the areas of customer relations management (CRM), and sales force automation. Cloud computing also allows users in diverse locations to access the same information and applications. All it requires is Internet access and log-in credentials. This can even include mobile devices like smartphones and PDAs. So salespeople can submit customer or order information, which can be reviewed instantaneously by their managers. The warehouse receives an automatically generated ticket. Even the marketing department can view the data, and have it compiled into reports, in order to assess their latest campaign’s effectiveness.

This has huge implications for businesses, and cloud computing applications can be put to excellent use in developing sales force automation and improving CRM. The benefits extend from macro level to the micro, providing information that optimizes both large-scale planning and the daily, in-the-trenches data the sales force needs to keep up. Moreover, this architecture is flexible. This means that if the demand increases in terms of what’s being asked of the servers, the supply can also increase to meet that demand.

Practical Application

Let’s take a look at the Dr. Pepper/Snapple group, which was using Excel alone, with team members keying in data manually. This cumbersome process made for five- to six-week gaps when trying to generate reports and evaluate data. The problem, of course, was that they couldn’t afford to wait five or six weeks. They needed a system that would allow them to access information much faster across every channel of the enterprise.

The cloud computing solution they chose helped prevent duplication of efforts and provided detailed metrics to optimize sales goals throughout the organization. The best part: all the information could be accessed from a common dashboard throughout the organization.

The new suite of applications also made the record-keeping much less time intensive. This redirected their work force towards maximizing sales and greater productivity.

How did the numbers pan out? Dr. Pepper/Snapple saw a 56 percent return on investment annually.

These same benefits easily extend to the tasks involved with CRM, keeping existing customers happy with consistent, reliable service and solutions. Real-time online collaboration means that agents are almost literally on the same page, preventing mismanagement and inconsistencies. When necessary, agents and managers can view the same customer information, and make notes, at the same time.

It might seem ironic, but the ability to collaborate online in this manner can actually improve the customer relationship, because it not only streamlines all aspects of communications and order fulfillment, but it also frees up sales reps and others to actually spend more quality one-on-one time with clients. Online collaboration and cloud computing are technological innovations that also enhance our offline lives.

I have a joke for you.

Q: How many salespeople does it take to manage a sales pipeline?
A: Only one, if you have a cloud-based customer relationship management system.

OK, OK, it was a pretty lousy joke. But you must admit that the “punchline,” if you can even call it that, is nevertheless impressive.

Cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software integrates the use of several applications to make the sales process more streamlined and efficient. For instance, opportunity analysis, sales invoices, sales analysis, and sales forecasting may each be integrated into CRM software to provide a more efficient sales process. Each salesperson has instant access to the application, whether in the office or out on the road. Increased productivity frees time for the salesperson to actually focus on strategies, and connect with customers, to close the deal.

CRM software allows salespeople to analyze data captured in order to identify key opportunities and generate leads. When managers are aware of the potential needs of a customer, they can address these needs before the customer pursues a competitor’s product. Analysis also helps the sales person remain competitive. Many CRM software solutions also integrate competitor analysis into the software, in order to assist sales people with this task. Identifying major competitors and key customers will assist managers in allocating the resources available.

Sales are easily tracked through CRM software. From sales data, managers can determine top performers, profit makers, future product demand and key customers. If the manager knows this information, he or she can assign top performers to major accounts or more equitably managed resources. This will assist the company with customer retention and increase sales volume. Anticipating customers’ orders will ensure the product or resources are available, thus building the company’s credibility and customer loyalty over time. Tracking each aspect of the sales process is essential to maintaining a productive, profitable and viable company.

Thanks to CRM software, some companies have cited as much as a 20-hour per week reduction in the amount of work that must be manually produced. That reduction provides salespeople with at least two more days of face time with the customer. Alternatively, this time could be spent strategizing about how to best approach a client to close a deal. Collaboration occurs easily through CRM software, because each salesperson has access. Seasoned sales people can share ideas and strategies with their colleagues in order to become more effective as a team. As the team becomes more effective, profits will increase as well.

Managers no longer have to constantly ask their sales people about the status of the deal. Sales people can update the CRM applications while they are on location. Managers can log into the system and view the progress of the sale in real time.

Virgin Money–a financial division of the corporate giant–recently adopted CRM software to improve their sales process. At a glance, managers can determine their sales, quotas, deals, and other pertinent sales information. Each salesperson has access from any place in the world. Sales teams may easily add new users, products and locations as they organization expands. The company has saved significant amounts of money through sales automation.

You may have heard the term “cloud computing,” and thought that it was some sophisticated technology that only IT professionals could understand. While there are certainly very complicated aspects to cloud computing, at its heart is a simple concept—running applications on the Internet, instead of using on-premises software. You probably already use the cloud much more than you realize—free email providers, social networking Web sites and other popular interactive sites are almost all run in the cloud.

For businesses, the cloud offers innumerable ways to grow, increase sales and satisfy consumer demand. The freedom to utilize software whenever and wherever the business needs allows phenomenal new applications of traditional models to be visualized. Completely new models are also starting to emerge, as well. Dell, a major global computer systems and services company, wanted to provide a view of its pipeline that would complement its global reach. It also wanted to provide increased collaboration between its sales teams, who were necessarily spread out around the world.

Customer resource management, or CRM, streamlines the way that customers interact with your business. CRM does this by tracking generated sales and focusing marketing efforts on relevant niches. Before cloud computing came along, this could only be done by either pen, paper and elbow grease, or with expensive software programs that required licenses, installation and training—as well as the server to store them on and all of that server’s associated costs.

Using cloud-based CRM applications, Dell managed to massively increase both customer and employee satisfaction by creating new ways for employees to interact across different departments and different countries, and even different continents. By integrating internal networks and providing correlations with consumer-generated data, Dell is now able to better judge trends in the computing industry and better serve their customers. Its sales teams are able to gain visibility into the sales pipeline, collaborate using online documents and other tools, and improve productivity by minimizing administrative work.

One of the biggest advantages offered by a suite of applications that are run in the cloud is that the business instantly has access to all the features of major internal network architecture—without the physical hardware and property costs. Ordinarily, a business the size of Dell would need vast facilities where servers, network hubs and other equipment could be stored and operated. Cloud computing erases this need by transferring the data storage and networking capabilities to the Internet. While this is a boon to Dell and other major corporations, you can see that it’s also incredibly valuable to small businesses, that may not have the wherewithal to purchase the infrastructure necessary to support their computing operations, but which can easily achieve all of their objectives on a pay-as-you-go basis with cloud computing.

Cloud computing also allows business to upscale and downscale their operations easily and quickly. This lets companies respond to market conditions without having to reorganize their business structure—or worry about their bottom line. Seasonal businesses or those that are just beginning to grow really benefit from this kind of flexibility.

Mobility is another reason to choose cloud computing—especially for sales teams, whose members are constantly on the go. Being able to receive leads, complete sales reports, input account details, access inventory or competitors’ promotions and research products online is a time saver for the sales rep. And managers can keep better track of deals when they receive the information in real time. Freeing up the sales team to do what it does best—spend QT with customers and close more deals—may be the number one service provided by sales force automation apps embedded in the cloud computing architecture.

Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past three years or so, you’ve no doubt heard about Twitter, the social networking platform that allows users to “microblog” what they’re doing, listening to, reading and eating in 140 characters or less. You might even use it personally. But this is more than a silly tool for socializing; it’s a business game-changer. If you’re not leveraging Twitter for marketing and customer relationship management purposes, you need to start.

Thanks to Twitter, companies can increase their sales and improve their brand image, for very little expense. The secret to this lies in one’s personal creativity, and in developing a following of virtual friends. First, let’s take a look at how Twitter works.

When you sign up, you can start following people, and others can find and follow you. They then see a real-time stream of your “tweets” — the 140-character messages that can also include links to Web sites, songs, pictures and video. You can reply to people, or send them a personal note through the service’s Direct Message feature.

Businesses have been using Twitter to monitor the buzz about their products, and to respond to customer complaints, issues and questions. By replying directly to customers with posts like, “I noticed your tweet. Can I be of service?” or asking them to DM (Direct Message) their account number, companies can show the customers that they are responsive and concerned. Customers are impressed when a company reaches out to them. This can mean the difference between losing and retaining a customer.

Other companies are proactive with their tweets. A taco truck which serves fusion food in the Los Angeles area has established itself as a major player on the street food scene, in large measure because they tweet their location and any pertinent announcements—such as their ETA at a certain spot or when a truck will be closing up shop for the lunch shift. Currently, the company has over 60,000 followers—pretty good for a small business that started with just a couple of friends and a truck.

Practical Application

Here’s another example of a food business that used Twitter to achieve success. Naked Pizza, of New Orleans, began tweeting in March 2009. They tweet specials, links to interesting articles, and even promote some charity and activism projects they’re involved in. They also carry on conversations with customers about pizza and many other topics. As a result, they’ve seen a dramatic ROI. An early Twitter promotion culminated in a store sales record, with almost 70 percent of total sales coming from Twitter users. They even changed the billboard in front of their shop to show the Twitter logo and the store’s unique handle.

Some companies use customer relationship management applications, usually running on cloud computing platforms, to capture and analyze customer behavior, hashtag usage and replies to the company that occur on Twitter. This data can be used to determine new product launches and marketing initiatives, as well as to drive customer service best practices. In short, these apps harness the power of Twitter to learn about customers’ behavior and preferences surrounding a company’s products and brand. The smart companies are the ones who are not only collecting this data, but actively responding to it.

So how about it? Is it time for your company to join the Twitterverse?