When we sit down with business owners to talk with them about their customer engagement, we often get the question, "How do we connect with our customers via Facebook? Before we dive into this question, let's pause and discuss why this is important, especially if you have a high traffic business, like a restaurant, bar (pub), coffee houses, fast food business, service station or retail store.

3 Important reasons to know your customers by name:

1. When your business has special events or offers you want to be able to get this information in front of your customers. The best way to do this is by using permission-based email marketing.  One of the best ways to do this is by building a trusted relationship, using Facebook, with your customers.  When you have this relationship established, you have a direct connection to your customer, using Facebook's basic trust level which includes your customer's name, profile photo and email address.

2. Most customers appreciate being recognized when they revisit your business.  The fact you have made the effort to remember their name has shown to greatly improve customer loyalty.  This is know as the "Cheers Effect", named after the 1982 TV Comedy seriers, Cheers - "Where everyone knows your name."

3. Creating a communication link with your customers, where they can easily communicate with you - the business owner, has surfaced as one of the most important elements in building true customer loyalty. Some businesses, such as Subway Franchises, make it almost impossible for the business owner to be on premise during all business hours. This makes it challenging for customers to build a relationship with the business owner, often the person they want to talk to if there is a failure in customer service or the product quality.  Giving your customers the ability to submit digital comments to you, while they're still in your business, is a critical element to developing customer loyalty in your business.

Digital customer comment cards are always at work.

OwnersAsk was designed to enable business owners to achieve all of these objectives.  Our digitial comment card system enables your customers to communicate with you, even if you're not there.  They simply use their smart phone to scan the code and leave you feedback.  You can configure notifications to alert you when comments are made or you can read them from your favorite browser, tablet or phone whenever it is convenience for you.

Your customers can elect to attach their Facebook profile to their comment.  This means we can easily attach a name, email address and face (in terms of their profile photo) with their comment.  You've now made a connection with your customer.  With a click of a button you can reply to their comment or forward it to a floor manager or other staff member for review.  Your favorite comments can easily be forwarded to Facebook, Twitter or Yelp.  We're planning an update soon that will build a gallery of your customer's profile pictures and names that you can view on your mobile device.  This feature is designed to help you put a name with a face.

OwnersAsk maintains a historical database of your customer comments making it easy for you to communicate to them, using permission based email marketing, on upcoming events and special offers.  Our application makes it extremely easy to communicate directly to your customers.

And to think it all started with your customer giving you feedback on your product and service.  There is no hardware or software to purchase, this is a cloud based service you access from the browser on your PC, Tablet or Phone. You simply sign up for OwnersAsk, create your first QR code, place it on some table signs, napkins or signage that makes sense for your business.  Check out some of these QR code examples for additional ideas.

Start to get to know more of your customers by name, download and try OwnersAsk today.