Retail Shops Must Use Foursquare

In these days of blind­ing-speed tech­no­log­i­cal advances, it doesn’t take an old per­son to be able to say, ​“why, back in my day, we didn’t have any of those… (fill in the blank).” Remem­ber flop­py disks? How about rotary phones? Well, anoth­er com­mon busi­ness con­cept is begin­ning to be rev­o­lu­tion­ized thanks to smart phones: cus­tomer loy­al­ty punch-cards. Google Places, Face­book Places and Gowal­la are all grow­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty as a way that friends can let each oth­er know where they are, and busi­ness­es can cap­i­tal­ize on this trend. My focus today is on Foursquare, which I would argue is essen­tial for any mod­ern retail shop, whether it is a store or a restau­rant. In a world where cus­tomers have lim­it­less choic­es, Foursquare can be used in cre­ative and effec­tive ways to bring cus­tomers back to your busi­ness. Foursquare is a social tool that allows users to ​“check in” to a store or restau­rant, let­ting their con­tacts know where they are. Users can com­pete to become the ​“May­or” of a loca­tion by hav­ing the most check­ins, and they can also upload com­ments, pho­tos, com­ments and tips. From the cus­tomer end, there are many ways this is easy and fun. Busi­ness own­ers can view the check ins and see who is com­ing in, and how fre­quent­ly. This is a great tool for savvy com­pa­nies to reward their faith­ful cus­tomers and show them appre­ci­a­tion so that they keep com­ing back. Treat your ​“May­or” like roy­al­ty, and offer your reg­u­lars some kind of dis­count or spe­cial to keep them com­ing back. Use it like a punch­card, and give cus­tomers some kind of free­bie for their 5^th (or 8^th, or 12^th) checkin. My Yogurt Story In the last few months, no less than three self-serve frozen yogurt shops have opened in my area. The weath­er has been per­fect for them here in the DC and Mary­land area, dri­ving the crowds indoors look­ing for some­thing sweet and cool. But what will they do in a few months when the out­door temps cool and peo­ple start head­ing for warm drinks? Foursquare seems to me to be a great resource for this. I recent­ly vis­it­ed one of these shops and hap­pened to meet the own­er. The whole expe­ri­ence was very pos­i­tive (though the yogurt was a bit pricey) and I spent a lot of the time watch­ing the cus­tomers and employ­ees. Try­ing to see how they entice return cuc­tomers, I noticed the employ­ees giv­ing every­one the same line: ​“Thanks for com­ing in. Please do come again!” It’s not bad… but it’s not great. I approached the own­er and asked him if he had heard of Foursquare. He hadn’t. I explained what it is and how he could use it for cus­tomer loy­al­ty, and I couldn’t believe his response! He looked at me as if I had sug­gest­ed dress­ing his employ­ees like clowns, and said, ​“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I have too many things going on right now. And besides, most of the peo­ple walk­ing in here don’t use Smart­phones. But thanks any­ways.” I frowned, walked back to my seat and con­tin­ued to study the yogurt cus­tomers as they bought and ate their yogurts. With no exag­ger­a­tion, I tell you that near­ly every adult who entered the shop had and used a Smart­phone dur­ing the time I was watch­ing. As Smart­phones grow in abil­i­ty and drop in price, young peo­ple and adults of all ages are car­ry­ing these devices and using Foursquare or sim­i­lar apps. What do you think? Do you agree with this? Do you use Foursquare? What expe­ri­ences with Foursquare or sim­i­lar pro­grams do you have? P.S. If you need help dis­cov­er­ing the poten­tial of Foursquare and how to use it, check out Foursquare101.