Word of mouth rules

In italian passaparola stands for word-of-mouth. I like it because it's the combination of two self-explanatory words: passa (passing) parola (word).

What neither italian nor english explain though, is that nowadays word-of-mouth and customer experience are intertwined. That's due to the global expansion of web and - especially - social networks.

In this 7th episode of my video-series I'm going to focus right on the consequences of online word-of-mouth for brands. Let's roll!

Customer experience > word of mouth > social networks

As you may know online conversations are empowered by social networks which amplify the message, thus reaching more people than ever. What marks the difference is the aim and content of such conversations. Briefly speaking:

• what you say.
• how you say it.
• with whom are you talking.

People need to share

When it comes to customer service, people tend to tell their perceptions which are consequent to their experiences. That's a natural behavior, since we are humans and we feel the need to share with others what happens in our lives.

Let's have a taste of some word of mouth stats...

Image credit - Blog.teleperformance.com

Apart from the above facts & figures, different experiences lead customers to have different behaviors:

• Negative perceptions (bad customer experiences, negative interactions) –> tend to be more spread.
• Positive perceptions (customers spending money,happy customers) –> become powerful recommendations.

As a customer I guess that you've already faced similar situations. In the 3-minute video below, I mention a couple of situations that surely you've already faced...

Highlights of this video

• 00:31 Why customer experience is a life-cycle.
• 01:04 Everybody needs to be reassured.
• 01:37 Ups and downs of customer perceptions.
• 01:57 Take care of each contact with your customers!
• 02:31 Greetings (till next Wednesday).

Video-related tip

Customers live experiences and convey their perceptions into word-of-mouth. Social Networks speed up and amplify effects on Brands.

About this video series

That's the 7th out of 10 videos. Previous ones were about social customer service since it's strictly related to customer experience. The formula of this series is 1 new video on Wednesdays for 10 weeks.

In case you missed one of my videos check them out below:

1. What is social customer service? [video]
2. The revolution of online conversations [video]
3. The value of trust [video]
4. Empowered customer sentiments [video]
5. The new customer service culture [video]
6. Why perception matters [video]

More juice for you

This week I've selected the following 3 articles for you. Enjoy them:

• 3 Ways to boost word-of-mouth and referrals for your business by Brian Barquilla on Entrepreneur.com
• Though people trust other consumers most, brands still have a role to play by Katy Keim on Marketingland.com
• Tone and language are building blocks to customer perception by Helpscout.com

Your turn

If Customer experience and word of mouth are wooden sticks, then social networks is the fire. Therefore brands shall proactively take advantage of it by delivering excellent customer experience, in order to get fireworks instead of flames.

• Did you include online word-of-mouth within your customer service priorities?
• What actions are you going to take?

Thanks for reading and watching this post; share your love for this article and add your comments below.

Have a great Wednesday.

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About Paolo

Paolo Fabrizio is Social CRM, Blogger, Speaker. Multilingual professional (english, spanish, german, italian), he is a pioneer of online customer cervice, having contributed to insurance start-ups since the 90's.

Paolo's insight: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has evolved into Social Customer Service. That time is now. This revolutionary business era is the core of his Blog.