#onlineratings onlinereviews promoteractivation

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How to generate word of mouth that will skyrocket your brand image?

Hey! Marketing has become increasingly difficult and unpredictable hasn’t it? There is a lot of cluttering, less attention from the customers, very hard to distinguish and make a brand stand out as compared to others. Marketers do have a challenge on their hands: that is to EVOLVE. So what can be an effective way to market and promote these days?

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In the era of internet and smart phone apps, the consumption pattern is increasingly becoming, what most Indian marketers would call, Rural. That actually means that customers are becoming Heterogeneous: customers love personalization and customized solution that exactly fits their needs and the purchase doesn’t happen unless customers see an essential value in it. The other component of this type of consumption is customers are connected and reliant on word of mouth: the good and the bad of a brand goes around more quickly than we anticipate;

Let me refresh your memory (or should I?), do you remember the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 incident. Oh, yes it indeed is one of a kind when talking about today’s times. The incident on flammable battery issues eventually led to the phone being ban from the airports, to ensure safety. Now, even a phone could be a threat. I’m talking about the impact on the brand, sales and most importantly customer loyalty.

It is said that a loyal customer would bring revenues, on average, worth 10 times his initial purchase. Now, who wouldn’t want that!? While talking about efficient use of the internet, most of us read reviews before we purchase anything.

Going by the numbers, higher the negative feedback lower would be your customer attraction and mostly retention capability.  And nobody wants that being a B2C business. And guess what for every customer that you neglect or ill-treat, they’re triggered to talk about it to at least 10 people, says Harvard Business Review. Astounding!

Good things take time to build, whether it’s a reputation or anything tangible. They are your foundation. You can’t expect them to be built overnight, right?

But, my friends it also takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and sometimes only one bad to lose it all says, Benjamin Franklin. This often can be applied to your company’s image.  You’ve got to garner more and more positive reviews on your company’s performance.  Your marketing drive must massively focus on captivating the good reviews that encouraged them to make favorable decisions.

You can’t be this perfect organization where there are zero complaints.

It’s impossible and often a hoax.

As we all know ‘good customer service’ being an experience is subjective. Open to interpretation by the ones who use it.

Positive reviews can often negate or nullify the effect of the negatives.

Well, let us help you in giving some tit bits as to how you could, stay on top of your game.  Feel free to share them with your friends and colleagues.

Focus on getting your Promoters’ testimonials:

What are you more likely to trust when looking at reviews. A customer’s opinion or an employee yapping about how good their service is. A recent Neilsen Trust Study shows that referrals are the most trusted form of advertising. 84% of the population bank on referrals to make a purchase. Your promoters are presenting your sales pitch. Sit back and enjoy! Consider this one campaign by Dove where they called in a commercial pilot on her experience with the soap.

Campaigns like this where promoters are brought into the forefront encouraged to give feedback, builds credibility.

Make it easy for your customers’ to review you:

Request your customer to review you every time they avail your service. Well, this should be a tradition the benefits are two-fold. It helps fellow consumers make informed decisions and as companies, it helps us understand where resources got to be channelized more.

Create referral programs:

You name it, they have it. Google, Uber, Dropbox, Paypal, Tesla and much more. All of them have referral programs. Talking about Uber, they’ve two separate one for drivers and customers. Refer your friends and both of you sit back as they roll in your free credits and rides, all done within the mobile app. A click away. Be subtle though, don’t pester.

Voice of the customers:

Delve deeper into what your happy customers are saying. Take their suggestions and reviews seriously. Inculcate them in your brand and see the difference. Customers who are more involved in making an impact will also help you in adding more value to your brand.  The world’s largest mail and logistics service company DHL has done something spectacular using their customers’ suggestions. They had encountered a challenge in improvising their supply chain and logistics. They hosted a hands-on workshop in Germany and Singapore and around 6000 loyal DHL customers showed up to co create solutions that would work for everyone. One of the many innovations that took birth was the Parcelopter which was a suggestion instead of using vehicles that generally took up to half an hour. The Parcelopter took only 8 minutes. Their customer satisfaction scores soared up to 80%. Great, isn’t it?

Use social media as a channel to address your queries:

This is one thing you got to imbibe from the Indian government. Heard of how The External Affairs Minister of India, Mrs. Sushma Swaraj and The Railway Minister again from India Suresh Prabhu use Twitter in handling queries of their department. Their twitter handle tackled issues right from a noisy passenger, cleanliness of a compartment to individual stranded in another country because of a lost passport. If they can why can’t you? Don’t just indulge in posting the goodie stuff about your organization. Well, the airline company famous for its discounts JetBlue is one company that hit the bulls’ eyes on this one. They use their Twitter account in handling grievances in a jiffy!

Do you see what I’m getting to? Be attentive and responsive, folks.

Be responsive:

Like Jet Blue does it, get back and ensure your response to their query is visible across. Serve the needs of your detractors as fast as you can, while you market your promoters.

For instance, Zomato a popular food restaurant rating app has this installed:

Do not ignore any feedbacks given online. A research by Zendesk says, 63% of your potential customers read negative reviews when going through the reviews on social media.

Budget your expense:

Last but equally important budget your expense. Avoid mindlessly spending on customer satisfaction. NPS is a system that helps you easily classify your customers into promoters and detractors and plan your marketing and service mix. To get an understanding of where do you stand and the gap in where you would like to go NPS benchmarking is a good starting point.

That’s it from me!