Foursquare has its uses for business owners, news reporting and even perhaps amateur stalking. However, could it be used as a tool for company employees and provide some organisational benefit?
Firstly, what I am **not** advocating is using your staff to provide anything other than their own opinions via social media. Getting them to provide fake reviews / tips (e.g. Buy the expensive xxxxx, it's really good) is not only completely contrary to the ethos of social media, its also gaming the game... especially if it is not utterly transparent that they are employees.
What you should do if you run a business, is monitor this important feedback channel to not only understand more about your customers (who they are, how often this small but technically-savvy group of visitors visit etc.) but also to get feedback on your staff as well product quality.
And before you ask... Yes, it is possible to get tangible positive as well as negative feedback on your team's customer service abilities.
You can, by registering your company with Foursquare, view important statistics about customer checkins such as time of day and top visitors. But what other employee benefits are there to using Foursquare? well... here's some thoughts...
- There is no reason why your employees can't read this feedback themselves and understand customer needs better
- They can familiarise themselves with other businesses in the vicinity (including feedback on the competition)
Foursquare have also been testing a new Staff page in the USA.
This is anticipated to be a specific section available to each business that allows employees to interact directly with customers (e.g. via Twitter).
This is not just good for customers, it helps to build up staff recognition and morale.
Are there any more suggestions on how it could be used?
Note: A special thanks to a certain well regarded Blogging company for recognising my mistake in an earlier posting
