Making User Reviews Work For You, Not Against You

I had the opportunity to be at the Shop.org conference in Orlando last week and listen in on an interesting presentation on User Reviews moderated by Patti Freeman Evans and presentations by Lorna Borenstein of Yahoo, Jacob Hawkins of Overstock.com, Brett Hurt of Bazzarvoice and Sarah Fay of Isobar.

The point was made by Lorna about the strong impact of advocates. She used a great analogy, a drop of water and how it creates a wave much larger than the original drop. The question was posed, “How do you get advocates to promote you?”

Now, user reviews, community sites, blogs, etc., are great ways to enable that advocate promotion. But, word of mouth, while a potentially powerful accelerant, is only an accelerant when it is positive. So, while it is great to enable your advocates, don’t lose focus on the prize.

The prize is satisfied customers. Our research consistently shows that customer satisfaction drives positive word of mouth. Also make sure that when you are measuring word of mouth, you not only measure positive word of mouth, but also negative word of mouth. Simply looking to see if people will recommend doesn’t not measure negative word of mouth. You cannot assume because someone doesn’t recommend that they are a negative. There are many reasons (the product, the person, etc.) why people won’t recommend, but will still be great, loyal customers.

So, enable your advocates, but also make sure you make your visitors and customers word of mouth a positive influence on your business, not a negative influence. It all starts with satisfying your visitors and customers.

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