CRM FYI

John Ragsdale, of the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), writes about a new service called TruCast by Visible Technologies that brings visibility to what your customers or anyone is saying about your company across the Internet and blogosphere. What I find potentially even more interesting is that this tool not only identifies what is being said about your company, but it brings into view the overall sentiment of their posts and even maps out their sphere of influence across social networks.

TruCast enables you to

• Keep a pulse on what people are saying about your brand, products, or services.
• Respond to individual posts to address angry posters before they gain enough momentum to reach a large audience.
• Use information gleaned from consumers to improve your product, or create a new product to satisfy an unforeseen need in the marketplace.
• Stay ahead of emerging trends in the marketplace.
• Identify current and emerging influencers.
• Start buzz about a product, service, announcement, or initiative.
• Learn more about your most vocal critics and fans.
• Tailor your message with the help of data on opinion leaders.

When it comes to Marketing awareness and knowing what people are saying about your company, this seems like pretty valuable information. On top of that, what if you were tracking those who are big proponents of your company or brand and became aware of their sphere of influence across the Internet? 

Now, what if you tied TruCast to Salesforce and set that kind of sales intelligence before your account executives?  Use the positive proponents of your company to boost customer reference programs and find champions within each industry you serve.  Find out about discussions that are negative and do what you can to approach those issues. 

Bottom line, it does matter what people say about your company.  Now how are you going to find out what they’re saying?

You can read John’s thoughts on it here.

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