E-commerce Link: Did You Hear That?

Learning to leverage word of mouth

December 2007 By Jeffrey Eisenberg

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The three triggers, according to Williams, are:

1. Architectural: This is a product, package or store design. When a product or experience is planned or controlled for a specific effect, it’s architectural. Aesthetics and a unique appearance and experience are architectural triggers.

Product examples: iPhone, iPod, Bose, BMW, Motorola’s RAZR and Michael Graves’ products at Target stores.

Experience examples: Facebook, Flickr, Apple retail stores and Starbucks stores.

2. Kinetic: This is energy and performance, in the show-business sense of the word. Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, which the well-known book “When Fish Fly” is based on, is the quintessential example of a kinetic trigger. Hipness, selection, fashion and outstanding product performance also are kinetic triggers.

Product examples: BlackBerry, Red Bull and Starbucks’ products.

Experience examples: StumbleUpon, Digg, Cabela’s stores, JetBlue and iTunes software.

3. Generous: A generous trigger occurs when perceived value substantially exceeds the price of a product or service. Extremely large portions in a restaurant, oversized seats on an airplane and consistently low prices are all generous triggers.

Product examples: Gmail, Vonage, Skype and Hyundai’s warranty.

Experience examples: Ubuntu Linux, Wal-Mart and SteepandCheap.com. And now music groups like Radiohead, Oasis and Nine Inch Nails are offering their music online for free.

The more remarkable the experience, the stronger the word-of-mouth effect, for good or bad. Just meeting expectations or barely surpassing them simply won’t be remarkable.

Create Transparency
Many companies still believe the outdated notion that any negative word of mouth is harmful. This simply is no longer true. When Dell got blasted in Jeff Jarvis’ famous “Dear Mr. Dell” blog post, many feared for Dell as it also announced its first quarterly losses. Instead, Dell refocused on its service and products, and launched a remarkably transparent blog that has been well-received.

People share bad experiences, but they also love to share their good experiences. According to Bazaarvoice’s Decker, “In its recent Marketing Leadership Council, Interbrand stated 21.5 percent of large market capitalization growth is directly attributable to customer experience.”

Take Advantage of Customer Reviews
We have tested what type of reviews to feature in our clients’ marketing, since not all reviews are created equal. We found that the best-performing reviews meet the following criteria:

• A review has to feel real because any sense of professional editing will be rejected by customers;

• A review has to convey that the reviewer had a real experience with the product or service; and

• A review should have details and specifics about how it helped the reviewer.

When you feature reviews, look for those that have at least one of the three word-of-mouth triggers:

Architectural: “It’s so sleek and elegant; plus I can fit all my equipment inside.”

Kinetic: “It fits in my pocket, takes great pictures—even in low light.”

Generous: “They were fast, and the location is great. They didn’t just offer coffee while I waited, they offered fresh baked cookies. I’ll be back.”

The Golden Rule
The golden word-of-mouth rule is “be real, and let your customers be real.” Work at continually optimizing customers’ experience with your product or service. If the experience customers have with you doesn’t match the marketing hype, you’ll get burned. The best ROI today comes from creating delighted customers.

Jeffrey Eisenberg is co-founder and CEO of Future Now Inc., a New York-based consultancy that specializes in online conversion strategies. He can be reached at jeff@futurenowinc.com.

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