John Andrews offered up an interesting suggestion over at johnon.com yesterday. What if you went to the trouble to type your customer's names into a search engine in order to learn a little more about them? What would you learn? How could you use that information to offer better service?

Andrews gives a prime example of running that type of search on a customer from one of his own sites and shares some suggestions of how he might have used that information to provide a better customer experience.

First, how he decided to run the search...

Well, a new customer buying a sample set of a designer at retail, "anonymously" over the Internet is interesting to me. I Googled her. Sure enough, she is a top executive at a competing global brand. So now we have a top executive at a global brand buying one of each for two lines, at full retail, over the web, on a private credit card, to be delivered to an address that (when Googled) is actually associated (in Google) with that global brand. Huh. Sounds like someone likes this line for some reason, and is personally placing it in view of her associates (either as part of a plan, for use in training or competitive research, or on a personal whim).

And a bit of insight into how he might use the information...

First, you can present the order in a way that "pre-sells" this kind of client for future business. Perhaps emphasize your wholesale relationships with the industry, or offer an update service… with each new line introduced, they get a sample? Second, since this particular Design Executive was so famous, you can actually learn what colors she likes, what styles, and what brands, and package the order for the optimal "out of box experience". For premium products, this is of minimal cost/effort and very, very worthwhile.

Consider it for your own line of business. Do you see a lot of repeat orders coming in? An order that's outside the norm? What might you be able to find out with a quick search? How might you use that information to create a better customer experience, or better yet, to create a new brand evangelist? It's worth considering...