According to a recent U.S study, even though 88 percent of home buyers are pleased with the service provided by their real estate agent, only 25 percent actually return to them when they sell their next house. This is largely due to the long  time periods between the two transactions. Homekeepr is a start-up company that enables agents to maintain ongoing relationships with their clients in order to retain their business further down the line. It aims to do this by positioning them as local experts who provide clients with a searchable database of recommended product and service providers.

A lot of businesses face a similar problem – the time period between one purchase and the next is a long one., and so it’s imperative that these businesses find some way of maintaining contact during the hiatus. A good way to do this is to provide regular useful information, perhaps in the form of  a regular email newsletter.

The frequency and nature of contact will depend on the industry and customer relationship, but the principle remains the same   – you want to be at the forefront of your customers mind when the purchase cycle comes around again.

www.homekeepr.com

Drunk Mode is a new phone app which in the words of it’s developers, “acts as a condom for your phone.” The basic idea is that the app, aimed at college kids, helps to keep the user safe and secure when intoxicated.

The app offers a drunk dial blocker that hides selected phone contacts for 12 hours, preventing inappropriate calls to ex-girlfriends. Then there is ‘Find My Drunk’ which  uses GPS to help users locate drunken pals and ‘Find a Ride’, which can source a taxi home or offer walking direction to friends’ locations. Finally,  ‘Breadcrumbs’ creates a map of the user’s movements using passive GPS data, and lets users retrace their steps , whether to find a lost item or for peace of mind.

Drunk Mode will soon be integrating a number of extra safety features  including a panic button that will text alerts to loved ones if the user finds themselves in a dangerous situation, and the ability to share the profile of a missing person with everyone in the network in a five mile radius.

Now you might argue that the best course of action is to avoid getting in that state in the first place, but it’s an interesting idea and may provide a  mental springboard to something else. Are there other reasons why certain features should be disabled from phones at certain times, and could there be money to be made in an app? For example, might an app that disabled gambling sites after a pre-determined period of use, be a good idea for some people?

www.drunkmode.org