If you’re interested in how social media and Web 2.0 are moving into small business, this post is for you.
Yesterday we began our interview (here) with Jim Burns, CEO of Burns Engineering, about how his small business decided to adopt Web 2.0 and social media in order to have rich conversations with their customers more easily. Today we talk with Jim about Burns Engineering’s customers and how the company works to engage them in conversations.
Q. Tell us about your customers.
A. I get excited about the customers we serve. What we do really makes a difference in peoples lives: from the safety of the tires on the car (Michelin) that we put our children into, to the medicines (Eli Lilly) we take to keep us healthy, the food (General Mills) we put on the table or the snow condition of the ski hill (Alta Ski Corporation) during our recreation time.
Our customers are engineers and quality and plant managers that look to our temperature measurement expertise to help create ways to drive efficiencies, productivity and safety through their manufacturing processes. Some of our main industries are biopharma, energy and food & beverage.
Q. What are the top 5 questions your customers typically ask you?
A. The top 3 questions we hear are:
1) What are the different ways I can install the sensor to get a good reading?
2) What are the different designs for Surface temperature measurement?
3) And the classic: Price, lead-time and accuracy. (Accuracy of the sensor only)
The questions are generally focused on the sensor itself and the rudimentary assumptions that the sensor is just a sensor. A few of the conversations will touch on some of the simple installation issues, but mostly very sensor proximate.
Then the next ones that usually come up are:
4) How can I minimize my cost without buying a cheap sensor?
5) How do I determine my measurement accuracy needs and then actually achieve them?
We prefer to look at the measurement in a more inclusive manner. Covering the measurement planning details from the element to the readout or data collection device. This begins to address cable and signal transmission topics, yet also the many other influences that affect accuracy and lifecycle costs. It quickly becomes the value question rather than the commodity question…
This is a higher calling point of view. So the way we offer answers and guidance must go beyond the phone call and email exchange…
Our objective is to share our TME (temperature-measurement expertise), as well as always be open to learn and dig into new challenges. Burns answers these questions and strives to engage others in the conversations by sharing what we hear and learn through technical papers, trade shows, WebEx presentations, Wikipedia updates, the BEblog, Email campaigns, and connecting via Linked In and Twitter.
Our objective and mission is to attend to the needs of our users by providing temperature measurement solutions that are presented in the context of the users process, sensors that meet their needs rather than fit in our catalog, and provide confident measurements of their process.
It’s clear that the folks at Burns have a passion for helping their customers. And that they are backing up that passion by adopting a new way of doing business.
Tomorrow, we’ll post Jim’s final comments about his Web 2.0 journey and suggestions to other CEOs considering taking the social media marketing plunge.
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