This Proves the Power of Resident Referrals
This is from the blog at Groundswell, by Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research.
As you can see, 83% trust the word of a friend. But perhaps one of the more interesting points is that the number who trust consumer reviews by people they never met on a retailer’s site (like eBags, the example in Groundswell) is 60%, only slightly lower than “a review by a known expert.”
Why do people trust strangers?
They don’t, not as individuals. But they do in groups. Strangers are assumed not to have an axe to grind. If 100 people on eBags say a laptop bag is great, then it is great. If they say it’s inferior, then it is inferior. Regardless of what a so-called “expert” might say.
What does this mean for your brand?
It means that a focus on “influencers” is not enough. You never know who may be reviewing your product, or where. Influencers may touch a lot of people, but so do the masses of reviewers on Yelp, or Amazon.com, or TripAdvisor. And heaven forbid you get people talking about your brand on The Consumerist.
If most of your customers like you, the lesson is this: help them to talk. Install ratings and reviews on your site. Create a blog and let them respond. Give them online tools and energize them. And embrace the fan groups they form on social networks. Fan the flames.
What if your customers don’t like you? Shutting them up is not an option. My only useful case study for this is Dell, which (1) started to seek out bloggers who were complaining and solved their problems to make them happier and (2) actually improved their customer service. That’s expensive. But if you’re in a cutthroat market it’s required.
Frankly, I don’t have a completely satisfactory answer, so I’m throwing it open to you. What should a company with a poor customer reputation do about social media?
May 5th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Comcast is supposedly doing the same thing as Dell, by monitoring Twitter posts (a social media-type of site). Apparently, if negative posts are made, then Comcast tries to reach out to those customers. I’m skeptical at this point, but maybe their efforts are genuine.
I also agree wholeheartedly that you can’t put your head in the sand when it comes to negative customer feedback. It’s human nature to pretend that if you don’t hear customer complaints then they must not exist, but this never works in the long run. Often, your customers just want to feel as though their voices are heard and that management actually gives a hoot of what they think, and social media is a great way to do this: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=10630699&blogID=388183502&Mytoken=5E0F2B51-EA8E-4F46-AE9A6893EAC1F3EF44265624
(sorry for the excessively long link)
Lastly, when it comes to sites like ApartmentRatings.com, why not be proactive? ApartmentRatings, by default, is used primarily by nonresidents and unhappy residents, which is why average ratings are so incredibly low. So why not change the demographics by encouraging residents (maybe with a prize) to put up their own rating? You will surely get a higher percentage of happy residents putting up ratings, which will undoubtedly result in a better score overall. People trust sites such as that, so discrediting them won’t work, but being proactive just might!
May 6th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Here’s a great blog post regarding Comcast and the issue we are talking about: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/silverman/5756229.html
An excerpt: “Almost since online communications began, people have used it to complain about bad customer service. With the explosion of personal publishing via blogs, forums and social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, those who have been the victims of clueless companies have plenty of platforms on which to vent.
Savvy companies are starting to realize that the same technology can be used to reach out to the customers.”
However, if you read the comments at the end of the blog, you will quickly see that Comcast has a much bigger problem on their hands, no matter what good steps they are taking now.