Over this last year or so we’ve put a lot of emphasis into a great customer experience.  Companies that figured this out first are now lightyears ahead of their competitors and reaping in the benefits of a great reputation for customer service and consequently, more business!

Let’s take a look at some compelling statistics

Nielsen released a report in 2013 called “Global trust in advertising” and ranked the top 3 sources of advertising that consumers trusted are:

1. Recommendations from people I know/Word of Mouth (WOM)

2. Branded Websites (hello!)

3. Consumer opinions posted online (Yelp, UrbanSpoon, etc.)

Advertising types will tell you that you can truly only control one of those things (#2), however, I would argue that you have control over all 3 to some degree. How?

Let’s break it down for each of the top 3 sources

Since recommendations from people you know is the top trusted source of advertising, you treat EVERY person as if they’re going to tell all their family and friends about your product or service. Does it make you nervous or does it make you feel excited? If it’s not the latter, then you probably need to change some things.

For branded websites…hmmm how do I talk about this without tooting our own horn? First you pick a web design company that you trust or was referred to you. Once you have your search narrowed down to just a few web design companies, I ALWAYS recommend picking up the phone and calling clients (at random) that they’ve listed on their website. Questions you should ask are things around their experience, their communication, and their post launch customer service. The last one is always a good indicator 🙂

Lastly, the consumer opinions posted online really is the same as #1 (recommendations from people I know). What I will say, however, is that you have the opportunity to respond to both positive and negative comments. SO MANY business owners I know will simply ignore their online reviews, but ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. The right thing you do? Try to understand and address the negative reviews (ie invite them to come back and try it again on your dime). Thank and reward the positive reviews (offer a free appetizer on next visit).

In reality, these are all relatively cheap things you can start doing immediately to take charge of your advertising. In case you need help, though, you can always give us a call.

 

Posted By: