Culture vulture
As the effectiveness of advertising wanes and media markets fragment, companies are increasingly keen to harness word of mouth to reach new customers.
It’s a powerful medium. The man on the street is trusted as much as a doctor, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer (PDF). The study based on over 3000 half-hour phone interviews discovered that people in the EU trust their peers more than anyone else when it comes to information about companies, and that ‘a person like me’ was considered as credible as a doctor in the developed world and more credible than a lawyer, CEO or academic.
Engineering word of mouth is far from simple. A viral marketing campaign can raise awareness of a brand or product, but does nothing to create advocacy for it. To turn customers into ambassadors, companies need to start by reviewing the experience they offer.
According to the peak-end theory, people judge their experiences almost entirely on how they were at the best or worst moment, and what the outcome was. Everything else is discarded, including any residual feeling and how long the experience lasted. That means users will always consider a frustrating website as such, even if they can use it successfully. It means a failure to ship products ordered will override any happiness the user felt at the ease with which the order was placed. It also means the only way to trigger positive word of mouth is to create positive experiences that are remarkable: quite literally, experiences that are so good that people want to tell others about them. Most user experience improvement initiatives are focused on increasing conversions but better user experiences drive advocacy.
Amazon isn’t the cheapest place to shop any more, but its customer service is efficient, trusted and widely praised. Success breeds success and any brand that wants to unseat Amazon will have to match it for the positive shopping experience it offers, both online and in shipping and delivery. Superior customer service is what prompts customers to recommend a business to their peers. After all, if you’re going to plug a company, it’s your credibility on the line too.
Few companies trust themselves to create that good an experience. In desperation, they often meddle in forums to try to balance out the opinions or resort to astroturfing to try to create a fake ‘grassroots movement’ in support of their business. But they can’t possibly keep up. There are only so many people you can employ and PR can’t repair the damage of bad word of mouth. You might be able to win the odd customer with a fake endorsement, but you can be sure they’ll warn others off if you can’t deliver on the standards they expect.
True customer advocacy grows geometrically, as new customers discover the business, are wowed by the experience it offers and go on to recommend it to their friends.