Generate Positive Referrals through Superior Customer Service

A company’s bureaucratic rules and regulations can be their own worst enemy when it comes to serving customers. Add that to the fact that employees seldom feel empowered to break the rules in favor of the customer and you have the main reason why negative word of mouth is generated.

 

I’ve been a Comcast customer for over 20 years and until recently purchased my broadband Internet, cable and phone service from them. Well, after several poor experiences with their voice over internet phone service I decided to go back to AT&T.

 

Now with Comcast we’re talking about the largest player in an industry with the worst track record on the planet in terms of customer satisfaction. Customers and even some of their employees are so displeased with them, that a web site was created called ComcastMustDie.com. I’m not into piling on, but geez, you’d think that they would try to do something, anything to turn things around.

 

Anyway, I get my first bill without the phone service and of course I’m expecting it to be lower. Not a chance, the new bill is higher than my old one. A call to Comcast reveals that my bundled plan allowed for a discounted rate on cable service that included a bazillion channels including all the premium movie channels.

 

About two weeks later, I get a call from Comcast saying that I have to return the modem they installed for my phone service or I would be charged for it. I realized it would be useless to ask them to come and get “their” modem because doing something that simple for a long term customer just is not Comcast’s standard operating procedure.

 

The lesson here for small business is that every negative customer interaction can be turned into a positive just by doing the right thing. Imagine if I was told that reducing the services in the bundled plan could result in additional charges. I might have thought twice about leaving, despite the nagging problems with the phone service. Or what if the rep on the phone, seeing that I was a long term customer who has given much money to Comcast over the years, was calling to set up an appointment to come pick up their equipment. I might be singing Comcast’s praises instead of spreading more negative stuff. Maybe not, but hey… it could happen.

 

Here’s a tip for small businesses: Do the right thing by your customers. Rethink your policies and procedures from your customers’ point of view and empower your employees to go the extra mile for the customer. Great customer service is the easiest thing you can do to ensure positive word of mouth. Take a look at what companies like Nordstrom, Zappos.com, Amazon.com and the Ritz Carlton are willing to do for customers. Some things may cost a little more in the short term, but when you think about dealing with customers as building a relationship rather than completing a transaction its well worth the cost over the long term.

People Are Talking About You

The thing about word of mouth is that it happens naturally. People will talk about a company’s product or services whether the owners like it or not. The challenge for small business is to make sure that the conversations are positive and not negative.

The good thing is that for small business, the line of sight to the customer is much more direct than that of large corporations. It’s much easier for the owner of a small business to have direct impact on the relationship with customers. He or she doesn’t have to go through layers of organizations and departments and rules and such. They can get to know their customers on a personal level, if they choose. And most small business owners should choose to do so.

A business owner’s relationship with his customers can be a key source for word of mouth. Sometimes its the little things that get people talking. Remembering their names,  their kid’s names, their birthdays. Anything you can do to make the customer relationship special will result in positive word of mouth.

With the low quality of customer service we all receive from most companies in nearly every single product category, small businesses can gain a competitive edge and tons of referrals by simply doing ordinary things extremely well. It sounds easy but so many companies miss the mark by treating their customers poorly.

Word of Mouth Marketing- A Boon for Small Businesses

Small businesses don’t have the resources to spend on mass media advertising. That’s why they get most of their business through referrals, friends families and colleagues. But very seldom if ever, do they do anything proactive to give people a reason to talk about them in a positive way or even ask for referrals.

This was confirmed yesterday when I attended Day 1 of Andrew Morrison’s Small Business Boot Camp. There had to be at least 100 small business owners in attendance. If you are a small business and this Boot Camp is offered in your town, by all means go. It’s well worth it. It’s a day and a half of intense focus on ways to make your business and your life more successful and productive.

This Boot Camp plug is an example of positive word of mouth.

As I was saying, once I shared with my fellow attendees that I was a self-proclaimed Word of Mouth guru, I received quite a few requests for my business card and website. Small businesses are constantly looking for ways to promote their businesses at a reasonable cost. Yet while most will say they get the bulk of their business from referrals, they are not really going after referrals in any sort of planned or strategic way.

With this blog, I’ll be posting some of my insights on ways to increase business referrals by taking a structured approach to building positive word of mouth. Let’s face it, people will talk about your product, business, brand or service. The challenge is to make sure that what they’re saying is accurate and most of all positive.

If you have any ideas you’d like to share, please do and if you are a small business owner, tell your colleagues about this blog.

Hello world!

It’s taken me a while to jump on the blogging band wagon. It’s nice to have a place to share my thoughts on a topic that’s of great interest to me. I’m so interested in Word of Mouth Marketing that I decided to offer it to small business clients of my firm gl Market Research (www.glmarketresearch.com).

gL Market Research is a full service marketing consulting firm that offers market research, brand management and word of mouth marketing services. Through our word of mouth marketing services we help small businesses manage their flow of referrals and generate positive word of mouth.

With this blog we’ll provide tips and talk about word of mouth marketing and how small businesses can use it to their advantage. Stay tuned, tell your friends about us and feel free to share with us.