The Power of Word of Mouth…and How to Utilise it

| November 16, 2015

The Power of Word of Mouth…and How to Utilise it

If you want to purchase a product, you want to make sure that your money is well spent. You take the time and make an effort to ask around. You ask your friends and family, read online reviews, check video reviews, etc. The idea is to get the opinion of someone who has experienced the product, and then make a decision. Recommendation and opinions that you receive from this form of information gathering is generally considered more reliable.

That’s the power of word of mouth. Most marketers realize that customers will always trust word of mouth more than any other recommendation. So as a business owner, how can you utilize this powerful tool? Here are some tips:

Provide Excellence

Getting great reviews from customers is easy. You just need to provide great service and more importantly customer service. Almost all customers value the state of the customer service over the state of the product. This is because if something happens to the product, a good customer service executive would do their utmost to help. A bad customer service agent might be no help at all.

Great customer service tends to leave a lasting impression with people and they usually don’t hesitate to talk about it to others. If your employees communicate well with your clients, you can be sure that they’re going to spread the word amongst their friends and family.

Reviews

According to a recent survey, people trust online reviews almost as much as they trust personal recommendations. Naturally, they will take any recommendations made by strangers with a grain of salt, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of online reviews. Needless to say, you need to encourage your clients to give you reviews. One way you can do that is to make the reviewing process easy for them.

If you have a complicated review system in place that would require registering and then logging in, people won’t bother trying to leave reviews. However, if you simplify the process exponentially, people will drop a word. By simplifying the process, you can increase your review count by nearly 200%.

Touch the Heart

The latest trend in advertising is to connect with the heart of the customer. Today, most advertisements carry a social message in them and aim to spread awareness. While most people don’t like to admit it, sentimental ads that touch a sensitive subject delicately are compelling. Some of these ads also become viral. If you organize a charity function, you’ll not only help a good cause, but  will also touch the softer side of your customers and earn their loyalty.

Get Customers Involved

When you’ve successfully converted customers into fans, you have a business that would weather all kinds of storms. One of the best ways to do that is to build a community surrounding the brand. You can keep the customers engaged by hosting gatherings and parties, making sure that the customers have a blast.

By developing a community, you’re nurturing an attachment. Unless you let your customer down in a bad way and don’t bother correcting the error, they will stay loyal to you for a long time.