Thursday, November 5, 2015

Credit, Social Media & Your Customer



In today's networked world there are tremendous technologies that credit and collection professionals can use to their advantage. If you don’t know how to Tweet, Link, Connect, Like, Share, Comment or Post; you will get left behind.

Credit Managers, Business owners, and receivable staff should be encouraged to have a profile on LinkedIn at the very least. Care should be taken to use specific keywords when creating your personal or company profile. Let the world know what you are good at. Ask your customers and suppliers for references. Most importantly send your customers and prospects a Connection Request. If accepted, you can learn a lot more about your customer and them about you.

Why is Social Media Important in Credit?

In our popular article entitled “The 12 Danger Signs”, we outline several scenarios where a LinkedIn connection to your customer would prove invaluable. Would it be useful to know if several of your customer’s key management personnel left the company?

What if your prospective customer gives you a credit application and states they have been in business for 10 years, yet the company profile (and that of its owner) is either sparse or non-existent? Should you be worried or at least pause a little bit?

If your customer’s business is operating as a going concern, you should see some social media activity, some on-line advertising, an updated webpage, perhaps an on-line store or even a Kijiji advertisement. All of this activity should give you some level of comfort that your customer or prospect is trying to build their business. Conversely if you do a Google search and only find a website with your customer’s equipment for sale – then that would be a major cause for concern.

At The PCR Group of Companies we try hard to post relevant content to our followers that may be of interest depending on the subject of the article. For examples of active social media accounts – just click on the links below to see what we are doing:

What’s The Bottom Line?

Prior to extending credit or entering into a contract, we strongly encourage you to examine the social media of person or company with whom you are contemplating doing business. You can tell a lot about your prospective customer by checking their on-line profiles in LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pintrest - just to name a few.

Perform an internet search on your customers email address and cell number. You may be shocked/ pleased at what you find. Do your due diligence on a prospective customer well in advance of processing the first order. 

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