ABSTRACT
Building close customer relationships, providing services that add real value to customers, and being recognized as a leader in the community are strategic goals of Price Modern LLC, a $120 million office furniture dealership that represents over 200 different furniture manufacturers, giving them the ability to work with a wide variety of vertical markets and customers. As a company with strong partners and some additional resources, Price Modern has the ability to leverage social media as a valueadded differentiator geared not only toward existing and potential customers, but toward the large community of influencers involved in their projects. These influencers range from architects and interior designers who are planning offices and specifying furniture, to developers and brokers, who are increasingly providing consulting services or wrapping the furniture purchase into their leases as a way to generate additional revenue. This chapter presents social media as a key value-added differentiator opportunity for a small business-to-business organization, and the insight that technology must not only align with strategic business goals but with the corporate culture as well. We examine the introduction of social media into Price Modern initiatives in their “Best Practices” initiative, sales force development, and information flow to existing and new customers in order to maintain and build the trusted relationships relied on for decades in the new and socially expected way.
