A startup called Crowdy.ai has created a widget it describes as a “social proof engine” that it hopes will change the way B2B companies sell online by providing visual evidence of prospects during into customers.
Deal-Maker is a web site integration that provides real-time updates on how web site visitors are taking action on a particular offering by a company. A small box will momentarily appear near the bottom of a web site, for instance, that displays the first name and initial of an individual, their location and what steps they have chosen to make. “Frank M. from Germany recently signed up for a trial,” might momentarily appear and then vanish, for instance, followed by, “Karen P. became a customer to boost her productivity.”
According to Carsten Schaefer, founder of Crowd.ai, the idea came when he was struggling to sell his own line of Windows-based application tools and noticed there is a “social gap” that a set of customer logos on a site can’t adequately fill.
“Customers don´t like to talk on the phone anymore or get thousands of advertising and sales emails, they want to convince themselves on the website, watching videos or using a chat to communicate,” he told B2B News Network. “Social proof is just the logic extension of that new way of selling over the internet.”
Crowdy.ai is launching Deal-Maker at a time when more organizations than ever are trying to capture and showcase the journey customers take through the marketing and sales process. Schaefer said the product will integrate directly with InfusionSoft and Unbounce and a Zapier app will capture opt-ins to receive information or other registration data on a web-site.
Schaefer said Crowdy.ai will ensure GDPR compliance by offering a data processing agreement starting next week which can be signed digitally by our customer in their dashboard. We The company will also offer an automated way for customers to request a copy of any personal data stored about them, along with a way to delete it.
“We’ve implemented appropriate policies and security protocols, conduct privacy impact assessments, keep detailed records on data activities and enter into written agreements with vendors.” he said.
The most likely areas where Deal-Maker will have an impact on conversions could include landing pages and checkout pages in an e-commerce application, Schaefer said, and the most likely customers will include software-as-a-service (SaaS) firms that need to grow their use base rapidly.
Of course, not everyone will want the world to know when they’ve converted into a customer or sales lead, Schaefer admitted.
“We record the data of the person like name, email address, avatar. That’s right,” he said. “But our customer has many ways to shorten these data and can decide to show either their avatar or a custom image.”