CRM Software Tracks New Prospects with Google Alerts

In an earlier post, I wrote about some companies who have found value in using Twitter to discover disgruntled customers. Of course, Twitter represents just a fraction of your company’s customers online. To help reveal other customer issues, many companies now rely on Google Alerts. These daily, automatic searches for key words and phrases can help customer service professionals get in front of a breaking situation before it gets out of control.

Like Twitter, Google Alerts can play a role in a company’s customer relationship management strategy. A team member tasked with tracking down customers with online complaints can use CRM software to triangulate their identities and locations based on data collected in-house.

Google Alerts are simple to use, but it may take some tweaking to get results that properly target real customer issues without catching irrelevant details. John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing has posted a list of ten Google Alerts shortcuts that can help your customer relationship management team find and resolve problems.

However, Google Alerts aren’t just for companies trying to solve problems. A handful of businesses have discovered that Google Alerts can actually be a pretty good prospecting tool. For instance, a gutter repair company in Chicago might run a Google Alert for blogs and Twitter messages that use keywords like, “gutter fixed.” Likewise, a Ford dealer in Tampa might register a Google Alert for blogs that include phrases such as, “want to buy a new Mustang.”

While not exactly warm leads, these hits on relevant blog and journal searches can turn up some prospective customers. A polite note via e-mail or Twitter can actually lead to an introduction and even a sale. Most CRM software will allow sales professionals to log the sources of these new leads using custom notes. However, Oracle and other CRM software developers are already testing new prospect search features that can automate the process of turning Google Alerts-style notifications into potential new buyers. With these new customer relationship management tools on the horizon, blogs can help generate sales in addition to serving existing customers.