Wow! Recommended by Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth on the Web - Sydney Reviewed and Recommended Recommended by Word of Mouth on the Web

 

Bad Word of Mouth - You can do more than hope that it's just your competitors who receive the bad word

Dealing with Bad Word of Mouth and customer feedback

 

The Dark Side

Welcome to the dark side.. Bad Word of Mouth is bad news. If you need any evidence we love hearing it, just switch on the evening news.

 

Profitable

Bad news can be very profitable if handled carefully and interpreted the right way. A complaint could flag areas of your business worthy of more attention. Once a problem has been identified, you are in a position to fix it or manage the issue and limit the damage.

 

Bad Word of Mouth

The more competitive your industry, the less likely it is that you can afford for your customers (or more likely, ex-customers) dissuading others from buying from you. Individuals who have never purchased from you may ward off potential customers with horror stories that increasingly bear little resemblance to the actual truth.

 

We all make mistakes

People make mistakes, organisations consist of people therefore it is impossible, no matter how good your systems and training are, not to get it wrong on occasion. If poor performance is not tolerated you may simply never get to hear about it. By allowing your staff to learn from their mistakes you should see an improvement in overall levels of customer service. The quality of service given will often be reflected in your customer’s comments to you and the outside world. Word of Web® (or ‘Wow’) can add to this process by publishing recommendations from your customers and thus helping to negate the effect of any negative comments that may be circulating. Wow can help you to replace the bad news with good.

 

Full Picture

Listening to complaints and negative feedback is only part of the story. You need to know as much about what your customers really think as possible, the good, the bad and the ugly. A more balanced view will help you to keep the negative feedback in perspective and know how best to deal with it.

Let us imagine that your market researchers have told you that 20% of cat owners surveyed said they wouldn't feed their cats your new “MoggyScoff” branded cat food if you paid them to. You might feel you have a problem.

If you subsequently discover that eight out of ten owners prefer ‘MoggyScoff’ to every other leading brand, that the trial was conducted scientifically without bias and the leading brand preferred over ‘MoggyScoff’ was your premium branded cat food ‘MosmanMogs’, your view might be different. You need to see the full picture before you can draw meaningful conclusions.

 

Word of Web®

Word of Web® can assist you to obtain customer recommendations and feedback. Word of Web® is word of mouth recommendations on the web. Wow established itself a few years ago focused on the Lower North Shore in Sydney. Since then Wow has grown to embrace most of Sydney and has commenced collecting reviews from exotic places such as Melbourne.

 

Negative Reviews

Word of Web® does not publish negative reviews. Worth repeating - we do not publish, disclose, broadcast or otherwise distribute negative reviews. Word of Web® is a source of reliable and quality businesses, we are not looking to scare people away from a business because of what could have been an isolated occurrence. The worst that may occur is a business listing maybe removed. If Wow receives enough positive feedback we will re-list them. Everyone can have a bad day.

 

What happens if you receive a poor review

When Wow receives a poor review we view it in light of all the other reviews we have received for that business. For example, a customer complained to us that one of our recommended restaurants had embarrassed them during a family lunch. We removed the restaurant from the Word of Web® site. As the customer was unwilling to discuss the incident with the owners directly we obtained a written apology on their behalf and the offer of a free meal. The proprietors are now aware of a problem and are in position to prevent the same thing re-occurring. The complainant has less of an axe to grind. We haven’t re-listed the restaurant on the Word of Web® site but will if we received enough relevant favourable comment to warrant it.

 

Customer Feedback

Just about every one of your customers has an opinion about you. Word of Web® is in a position to collate and interpret customer feedback for you and help you make some sense of it. Even when your customers don’t want to respond it tells you something. Most people find providing positive feedback a lot easier than negative. This is less of an issue when dealing with a third party such Word of Web®, particularly if the process is anonymous.

 

How do you generate customer recommendations and feedback?

How you generate customer recommendations and feedback is a another story Please visit:

Word of Mouth Marketing

 

Turn a Negative into a Positive

Many businesses recognise that Bad Word of Mouth is something to be wary of but essentially try to ignore it. Word of Mouth recommendations and customer feedback are the tools at your disposal to understand and mitigate negative comments and complaints. You can turn a negative into a positive and Word of Web® can help you to do it.

 

Copyright

You are free to copy this article provided you recognise the source [Word of Web®] and provide a link back to this web site http://www.wordofweb.com.au. Thank you!