Generating word of mouth for small business

While Pete Blackshaw’s book, “Satisfied Customers Tell 3 Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3000” is enough to make any business owner nervous, there is a positive light when dealing with unhappy customers.

Whether you run a restaurant, hair salon, or hardware store, you know that not all of your customers will walk out of the store with the same experience or feelings no matter how hard you try to ensure “great customer service” for all. 

Generally speaking, there is a “Customer Word-of-Mouth Spectrum” that ranges from Evangelists to Negative, but the vast majority of your customers will fall into the terrible gray zone of “Neutral” (something like 80 to 90%).  Meaning, some of your customers will have such a great experience with your store or services that they will want to tell their friends and evangelize your business for you.  Of course, there will always be a percentage of customers who, for some reason, had such a poor experience with your business, that they feel the need to sound the alarm to friends and others. 

Then there is the giant neutral zone.  Within the neutral zone, you may have both satisfied and unsatisfied customers, but even those who were generally satisfied enough with your services to return are still not spreading the word about your business.  For some reason, the goods or services they received were simply not memorable enough to make it into their everyday conversations with friends, family or neighbors.

The key here being the word “memorable”.  Memorable experiences, whether positive or negative, are the ones that make it into your customers’ everyday conversations.

So what if you could give an unsatisfied customer – even an angry customer – a positive “memorable” experience before they walk out the door (or shortly thereafter)?  Chances are that you converted this customer from the Negative end of the spectrum, but not into the Neutral territory.  On the contrary, you will have completely flipped this customer from the Negative end straight into the Evangelist end of the spectrum.

Creating more evangelists for your business should be one of your top goals, because these people will do your marketing for you…for FREE! (Or perhaps, because you gave them a small token or coupon in order to win them back, but wasn’t it worth it if they tell 3 more people??)

Thus, by trying to “win back” an unhappy customer, not only can you stop one person from spreading negative word of mouth.  You are actually creating a brand new evangelist and hopefully attracting some great new customers through them too.

Sounds like a win-win to me!

So the next time you see one of your customers begin to express dissatisfaction, remember you have just been presented with the precious opportunity to create an evangelist.  Don’t run from it, run towards it!  Seize the day!