The Most Effective Marketing Strategy Is Free! Here Is Why

Have you ever heard of "Viva Voce"? Yes, the old "Word of Mouth" advertising. Believe it or not (well, It's hard not to believe!) this is the oldest form of marketing. When our ancestors had no technology, when there was no TV, no Internet, no Telephone or no Fax machines were around and people could only send messages to a faraway land using a pigeon, they used "Word of Mouth" to get new customers, perhaps without even realising it! It would be interesting if they used pigeons to send to every neighbourhood to advertise! The world would have been just one massive "Trafalgar Square", 6 or 7 years ago!

Here is what Wikipedia explains Word of Mouth:

Word of mouth, or viva voce, is the passing of information from person to person by oral communication. Storytelling is the oldest form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others of something, whether a real event or something made up.

People Talk

When it comes to experiences, people talk to each other about two main things:

Negatives and Positives

We love to shout about how amazing our holiday was and how wonderful the staff were (maybe even exaggerate a bit to make the listener jealous). But we also talk about our bad experiences, specially if we know someone is about to face the same trauma! Funny enough, we prefer to make people aware of the negatives rather than the positive. Here is more details based on the study done by "TARP", a well-known customer experience agency. According to TARP, on one of their studies on the effects of word of mouth in business, found that a satisfied customer may share the positive experience with just a few friends who will not remember much of the conversation and possibly won't share it with anyone else. On the other hand, customers with the worst experience will share the negative feedback with an average of 12 other people. And interestingly, each of those 12 people WILL tell another 6 people! So let's do the maths:

1 person tells 12 people: 1 x 12 = 12
Each of the 12 tells 6 others: 12 x 6 = 72
Total number of people told: 12 + 72 = 84
Plus 1 originally unhappy customer: 84 + 1 = 85

Yes, 85 people will know about the bad experience. And I don't need to say more!

Damage Control

Well, to start, you need to take some serious action. First of all, you need to address the problem and speak to the customer. Preferably before they leave your premises. Take them away from your shop floor, Some people will be encouraged to make a scene if they know there are other customers around. This is so true!

Acknowledge the problem and address the situation. Make sure the customer gets your apology. Most times, this is all they want. If they already have left before you get a chance to meet them, then go out of your way and make a phone call, send them a letter or an e-mail. Whatever you do, make sure you speak to them and preferably arrange to meet in person. Send them a gift if you need to, you want them be happy and come back to your business really. This way, your show that you care and value them, so everyone is happy!

Then to prevent this from happening again, you must make sure that your service is spot on. Train and re-train your staff regularly. Put in place monthly assessment and mark them on their performance. Work with your staff to address what needs improving. At the end of the day, they are the ones who deal with your customers directly, so they know what's lacking.