Web Word of Mouth Blog -- Rust Reviews, LLC

Prospective Customers Trust Customer Reviews

2010-07-02T16:42:00.000-05:00

A new Social Media Revolution video is on YouTube and it makes some great points about word of mouth:

Twenty-five percent of search results for the World's top twenty brands are links to user-generated content. You don't own your reputation anymore -- your customers have tremendous influence on your reputation and word of mouth through blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Thirty-four percent of bloggers post opinions about products and brands. Google "Jeff Jarvis Dell" to read about the impact of one blogger on Dell's customer service policies and processes.
Seventy-eight percent of consumers trust peer recommendations.
Only 18% of television campaigns have a positive return on investment.
Only 14% of consumers trust advertisements!
Social media isn't a fad -- it's a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

Is your business ready? Let Rust Reviews help!

Encouraging Linchpins

2010-01-25T21:11:00.000-06:00

I’ve just finished reading Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin: are you indispensable?, and his discussion about the importance of linchpins made me think of a conversation I had with a potential client recently.

We were talking about how to handle Web customer reviews -- both negative and positive. This business has a positive review in Google Maps that identifies an employee by name for providing remarkable service. The business owner also has an MBA from one of the top business schools in the Country, and when I suggested that she make it a practice to recognize such outstanding work, she immediately started to process my suggestion in the context of written policies and procedures and employment manuals. I had to gently redirect her thinking to something impromptu and joyful like gathering the staff together and giving her employee a bouquet of flowers as a token of appreciation.

Linchpin discusses the importance of giving gifts and the concept of emotional labor. It also talks about the need for leadership, in addition to management, in the workplace. My friend’s management training was causing her to think in terms of enforceable, uniform policies, but linchpin leadership thinking would have her searching for creative ways to reward and reinforce linchpin behavior in her staff. Seth Godin might say it’s the choice between creating an organization that’s scalable and one that’s remarkable. I think I’d choose to create a remarkable organization over a scalable one, because in the age of Web Word of Mouth, the remarkable business will be the one customers will talk about.

For help in developing your remarkable organization, please contact Rust Reviews.

The Linchpin and The Gift

2010-01-25T20:57:00.001-06:00

I’ve just finished reading the new Seth Godin book, Linchpin: are you indispensable?, and in describing what it takes to be a linchpin, Seth talks about the power of gifts. This power was illustrated for me a few days ago, and I think it’s worth talking about.

Seth’s book is a thought-provoking call to become a linchpin -- a person who can “invent, connect, create, and make things happen.” A linchpin is also someone who is indispensable to an organization because of the emotional labor that he or she performs in addition to the tasks listed in a job description. Linchpins are essential to any organization that seeks to thrive in the new economy with a strategy other than cutting prices. Seth says that in this new economy, giving a gift creates value for the linchpin even though these gifts are never actually repaid. If fact, if a business gives something with the expectation of a some customer response, then it’s not really a gift and won’t have the beneficial effect that the business or individual is hoping for.

Last week I joined a committee of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which is one of the biggest rodeos in the United States. It’s also an event which depends on the support of over 22,000 volunteers. The Rodeo funds scholarships supporting more than 2,000 students, worth more than $24.8 million, and it generates more than $345 million in business and revenue in the Houston metropolitan area.

I was leaving Reliant Center in Houston after volunteer training and started talking to the gentleman standing near me on the escalator. He told me he is on the Transportation Committee, which runs trams and other vehicles around the show grounds, and he said he had been volunteering for seven years. I said that I’d just volunteered for the Facility Services Committee, and he responded that he really enjoyed working with other volunteers and with the Rodeo. He said it was fun to do the work and he said that the fun was contagious -- that visitors to the Rodeo picked up on the friendly, good-times spirit of the Rodeo volunteers and they seemed to have a better show experience because of it.

It occurred to me that the gift of this volunteer’s enthusiasm and positive attitude was a linchpin trait and it was making a difference in the show experience of every Rodeo visitor he met. He wasn’t being paid to be positive, and there weren’t rules requiring a positive outlook, but he and his colleagues freely invest their emotional labor in the Show, because they enjoyed working in that environment and for the benefit of visitors.

When we invest our creativity and our emotional labor in our work for customers and clients, we gift added value to the connection and any transaction. It’s the way to be a remarkable, successful business in this evolving economy. We can’t dictate a positive attitude or mandate cheerfulness and friendly service in our businesses, but we can be positive role models, recognize the linchpins in our organizations, and demonstrate that gift-givers are valued.

I strongly recommend Linchpin. I’ve read it twice and I’m sure I’ll refer to it often as I seek to strengthen my own credentials as a linchpin and endeavor to bring linchpin-thinking to the organizations I work with.

Really Dumb SEO Mistakes!!!!!

2010-01-11T19:02:00.000-06:00

Photo by Marília Florêncio Santos

I looked through a new version of a website today in preparation for a “free initial consultation” I provided, and I was appalled at the DUMB SEO mistakes in this website -- hence the topic for this blog post! Here’s what I found during a cursory review of this “professionally-prepared” website:

None of the site pages used keywords in the page titles. Every page title consisted of the domain name of the site followed by a hyphen and then the page link title like, “home,” or “services.” The title is the most important SEO real estate on the each web page, and to use it to repeat the domain name is DUMB.
None of the site pages included a meta description describing each page. Again, this is valuable web page SEO real estate, abandoned and unused, which is DUMB.
None of the site pages include meta keyword tags. I know Google doesn’t use these anymore and perhaps most search engines accord them little weight, but it doesn’t cost anything to include them, so why not?
None of the photos used in the website included alt tags describing the photos. This is an opportunity to perform a service for someone using a reader to access the web pages and it’s also an opportunity to use keyword-rich photo titles. An opportunity wasted, which is DUMB!
From an ease-of-use perspective, the new site scored additional DUMB points by requiring the use of a CAPTCHA to contact the business. We can debate whether it’s wise to provide an email address in a site when that address can be mined by spammers, but a CAPTCHA on a Contact Us form is likely to cause some prospects to move to the next website in the search results. Plus, the form required seven items including the postal code. Was there a mention of a privacy policy associated with the collection of that information? Nope!

I don’t make my living doing high-powered search engine optimization for national brands, but I’ve learned the basics of good SEO to promote Web Word of Mouth and every web developer should too. A great guide to basic SEO is the one produced by Google and available for free called the Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. Read it and check what you learn against your own website.

What works with business use of social media!

2010-01-05T10:15:00.000-06:00

Photo by Jade Gordon

An interesting article in eMarketer highlighted the most successful marketing tactics businesses are using with social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The data is from a 2009 MarketingProfs survey of B2B and B2C businesses. After looking at the data, I came away with a different conclusion than eMarketer -- but more on that below.

According to the Survey, the most successful Facebook marketing tactic for B2C businesses was creating a Facebook application around a brand with 41.9% reporting success. The most successful B2B tactic and second most successful B2C tactic was creating surveys of fans with 37.1% and 37.9% reporting success respectively. Not surprisingly, the least successful marketing tactic was buying cost per click ads of Facebook for both B2B and B2C businesses.

For Twitter, the Survey data indicates that the most successful B2B and B2C tactics were related to responding quickly to PR problems and negative word of mouth on the Web. The least successful tactic for both groups of businesses was driving sales by Tweeting links to promotional webpages.

A couple of takeaways from the article. First, it’s probably not an effective use of your marketing resources and time to advertise on social media sites. I’ve talked to lots of small business owners who are looking for ways to replace the advertising that used to be successful in newpapers and the Yellow Pages. They know about the increasing use of social media, and they assume that the ads that worked ten years ago will work again in the new social media venue. The Survey shows that is not the case -- people don’t visit social media websites to view ads and they usually ignore the ads that do appear there. People do visit social media sites to engage and interact with other people and with businesses they like, so if you’re willing to engage with your customers, then social media offers a new way to build business word of mouth.

My second takeaway is that none of the Survey data showed that a majority of businesses found any one marketing tactic to be effective. No marketing tactic was reported as successful by more than 46.9% of businesses. I suspect that this is because social media relates to much more than marketing and that surveys by marketers of marketers might miss this point. In fact, the most effective tactic -- monitoring Twitter for PR problems -- is as much a customer service issue as a marketing one. If businesses look at social media as a pure marketing play, they are missing the potential uses of social media in customer service and retention and in using customer feedback for product and service development and innovation. Look beyond just the marketing and apply social media to improve your business and engage with your customers.

What do customers want -- that businesses hate to give them?

2009-12-22T14:42:00.000-06:00

Photo credit: Thad Zajdowicz

If we want to succeed in business, we’re told to find out what our customers want and then give it to them. Lots of research goes into determining consumer preferences and desires. However there is one thing that consumers look for that businesses, and especially small businesses are reluctant to provide. That missing element is customer reviews of our businesses and our products and services.

I talk to many small business owners, and when I mention the many reasons for collecting customer reviews online, most of them start edging for the door. They are very reluctant to have customers posting comments about their businesses in such a public way, and they are afraid of losing control of their business reputation and their brand to unhappy customers, disenchanted former employees, and scheming competitors. They are happy when a customer posts a positive review for their business on the Web, but they don’t want to encourage that kind of behavior by asking their other customers to post reviews.

This is dumb! First of all, you can’t stop your customers or other interested parties from leaving reviews of your business. You don’t have the power! So if you can’t prevent Web Word of Mouth, shouldn’t you try to make the Web work to your advantage by encouraging your satisfied customers to post reviews? Second, your consumers are looking for reviews of your business to help them make the decision about whether to buy from you or not. Shouldn’t you provide what these consumers are looking for? Shouldn’t you ask for reviews to respond to this consumer desire for information about your business and your competitors? I think you should and if you think about it, I think you will too!

Surveys show that about 60-70% of Internet users research businesses, products and services before they buy. They are looking for customer reviews and business reputation information, and surveys show that they generally find online reviews to be credible sources of information. Most consumers are smart enough to look past the occasional rant or the SPAM review. In fact research shows that an occasional negative review makes the other reviews more credible. So don’t worry too much about an occasional bad review.

Ask your regular customers to provide recommendations for you online. Make it easy for them to do so, and thank them for their recommendations after they follow through. It’s easy and it will pay big dividends for your business over the long run. Let us know if we can help you get started.

Is Word of Mouth Just Marketing?

2009-12-13T12:49:00.001-06:00

Many people associate the phrase “word of mouth” with the word “marketing.” There is a Word of Mouth Marketing Association and “word of mouth” is often mentioned as a marketing alternative to advertising. If you search Twitter or the Web, you find “word of mouth” linked to “marketing” almost all of the time. The Linkedin Word of Mouth Group discusses marketing strategies rather than business operations strategies.

However, I see “word of mouth” as much more than a marketing strategy -- “word of mouth” is also a way of operating your business so that your reputation works for you over the long term. This philosophy of operations is so important, because if you don’t run your business to support your word of mouth, you’ll find that your reputation cycles randomly between positive and negative. That kind of reputation won’t help you market and grow your business!

Lots of marketing gurus talk about businesses being exceptional to earn word of mouth mentions and build word of mouth marketing. They also talk about surprising and delighting customers, but they rarely give hints about how to do that. When they do discuss ways to earn word of mouth, the gurus never tell you how to do it on a consistent basis. They don’t talk about embedding reputation-worthy processes in your business because most of them are pure marketers, and they only have vague ideas about process improvement. However customer-driven process improvement is key to developing your business reputation.

Here’s an example. A local auto repair shop does generally good work at a fair price. Last year, the shop worked on my wife’s car for several hours to track down an electrical fault and when they didn’t find anything wrong, they only charged her for an hour of work. However, there have also been several problems recently. The shop replaced an air conditioning compressor and forgot to charge the system with refrigerant. A mechanic left a large crescent wrench under the hood and closed the hood on the wrench -- we discovered the wrench a week later when I noticed that the hood looked a little warped. The shop also tells you they’ll call you when your car is ready, but they rarely do. All of these problems could be prevented with the implementation of simple quality assurance steps in the shop’s repair and operations processes, but the shop doesn’t make those changes. I’ll continue to bring my car back for service, but I’m not motivated to leave an online recommendation for the shop. If someone asks me to recommend an auto repair shop, I’ll talk about the pluses and minuses of this one.

If that shop owner wants to build Web word of mouth, he needs to add a quality assurance check after every repair, and he needs to add a “call the owner” process step to the process of finishing the repair paperwork. There would be some staff training involved in implementing these changes, but no other costs. With the changes made, the shop’s repair service would maintain a higher standard, and customers would be much more likely to recommend the business.

To keep building your business reputation, you have to be a superb performer over the long term. To be consistently good, you have to understand your business processes, and you have to be dedicated to continually improving them based on the market and based on feedback from customers, employees, and the community. The quality of your business processes forms a performance baseline for your business. With high-quality business process, your performance will be consistently exceptional and your word of mouth will be exceptional too!

Web Word of Mouth and The Benefit of the Doubt

2009-11-30T17:52:00.002-06:00

Photo by Mike Johnson

Seth Godin recently blogged about The Benefit of the Doubt and its impact on business. He says that misunderstandings, mistakes, and misinterpretations are inevitable in business relationships. If we're dealing with someone we trust, we give the person the benefit of the doubt in those situations. We believe that our trusted counterpart will work with us to fix the problem and correct the misunderstanding. If we're working with someone we do not trust, then we are likely to see the problem in a different light and we are more likely to act in a way that protects and promotes our position. A quick solution to the problem becomes unlikely.

The Web has created an opportunity for us to build trust personally and for our businesses. When customers leave positive reviews online, when they blog about our customer service, and when they are connected with us on Linkedin or Facebook, there is a basis for those customers and for our new customers to trust us when problems occur. Of course, if your online reputation is characterized by poor customer reviews, you can be assured that you will not be given the benefit of the doubt, even when you should be.

Web Word of Mouth can provide evidence of your trustworthiness for new customers that will prompt them to give you the benefit of the doubt when mistakes and misunderstandings crop up, as they inevitably will. Give your business an advantage in customer relationships by working purposely to build Word of Mouth online. Let your customers attest to your trustworthiness online and earn the benefit of the doubt in your business relationships.

Please contact us to learn more about Web Word of Mouth.

Negative Word of Mouth -- The Worst Way to Respond

2009-11-29T19:21:00.000-06:00

I recently advised a small law firm that had received negative word of mouth in the form of a bad review from a former client. This review was posted to the law firm's business listing on Google Maps, and it accused one of the firm's lawyers of unethical conduct and being unprepared for the client's trial.

There were a number of good options for responding to the bad review:

Reaching out to the unhappy client offline to try to repair the relationship, and then asking the client to change the review;
Responding online to the bad review to document the firm's attempts to satisfy the client;
Asking satisfied clients to post good reviews to the firm's Google listing, thereby offering a positive view of the firm's work with clients; and
Asking Google to remove the review because it was defamatory.

I told the attorney involved that there was only one unwise way to respond, and that was to ask Google to remove the law firm's listing completely. Sure enough, I checked back a couple of weeks later and the firm's business listing, with the bad review, had been removed from the Web by Google.

Why was this an unwise strategy for this law firm to take? Here are some of the reasons:

Even though the firm's Google listing is gone, this unhappy client can find other outlets for her anger on websites such as Yelp, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, Findlaw, Avvo, Citysearch, Judy's Book, and Angie's List. This negative word of mouth could multiply across the Web because the law firm chose to avoid dealing with the ex-client.
By failing to launch an effort to collect online recommendations from happy clients, the law firm ensures it will be in the same predicament the next time an unhappy client goes online to write a bad review.
The law firm's website is not search engine optimized and performs poorly in local search, so eliminating the Google business listing has made this law firm all but invisible online. At the same time, a majority of consumers and businesses are using the Web to search for legal service providers.
By failing to claim the Google listing, the law firm will be unaware of the reappearance of a firm listing the next time Google purchases and uploads a law firm database.

The very best way to deal with negative word of mouth is to be proactive about launching a program to build positive word of mouth on the Web. By regularly asking clients for recommendations, creating search engine friendly and usable websites, and by responding effectively when a client problem occurs, any good law firm can build great word of mouth. If you need help launching your Web Word of Mouth program, please contact us.

Building Customer Loyalty -- Nudge Your Customers to a Positive Perception of Your Business

2009-11-29T19:13:00.003-06:00

I'm currently reading a book called, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. It's interesting because it discusses how we make decisions -- how our decisions are influenced by different parts of the brain and by external factors. The authors make the point that most people are easily influenced by the statements and actions of others. They say that if you see a movie scene in which people are smiling, you're more likely to smile yourself.

The same influence also works in online Word of Mouth. When someone reads a positive review of your business online, they are more likely to write a positive review themselves. When a non-customer talks to a loyal customer, that prospect is much more likely to visit your business. In contrast, when one or more negative reviews are left for your business, your customers are more likely to join the detractor and leave more negative comments.

The likelihood of the "nudge" factor is increasing as Google has improved its local business listings to bring in reviews from many different Web sources. If your business has a review or two scattered between several different websites, they will all be consolidated for Google local users. Since Google has 65-70% of the online search market, this also means that more Web users will see your reviews.

So if you've already collected a few negative reviews online, you're not being smart to ignore them and hope they'll go away. The negative reviews will likely influence any of your customers (as well as potential customers) who find them, and the list of negative comments about your business will almost certainly grow.

The good news is that if you've collected positive reviews, you're more likely to obtain additional favorable comments from customers who've read earlier reviews. Of course, if you've started to set a negative track record, you can still turn it around by asking your satisfied customers to leave positive reviews online. A few great reviews will change the atmosphere of your business listings from condemnation to praise and will encourage more favorable comments.

If you've started to collect a few negative reviews online, please contact us for Web Word of Mouth advice in responding. If your business has received positive reviews so far, rejoice but continue to ask your satisfied customers to leave additional feedback. You want to start that snowball effect of enthusiasm for your products or services. If you'd like some ideas for making it happen, contact us.

Better Business Communications -- How Poor Communications with Prospects Affects Web Word of Mouth

2009-11-29T18:45:00.001-06:00

We often see discussions of the need for a great "customer experience" to start the conversations, which build word of mouth. However, the customer experience is only one of the "experiences" that will shape the Web and traditional word of mouth for your business. Another experience that can create positive or negative Web Word of Mouth is your sales communications with prospects. Let me give you an example.

A month or so ago I signed up for a social media marketing tutorial from an online marketing company. This is a company that specializes in improving "inbound marketing" for small businesses and part of that goal is the promise of improving the marketing performance of small business websites. I was contacted by a salesman about ten days later. To quote his email:

"Did you download the info just to learn? Or, are you looking for a cost effective solution to help with your website inbound lead generation? After spending a few minutes on your website, I have identified a few quick changes you can make to your site that will immediately improve quality traffic and lead generation. Would you like to discuss?"

I responded that I'd downloaded the info to learn, but I'd be happy to discuss my website. The salesman emailed back and set a time for a phone conference at 2PM Eastern the following Monday. I was in my office ready to go at 1:30PM, when he sent an email asking me to shift the meeting to between 3:30 and 4PM that afternoon. I responded that I'd be waiting for his call at 4PM -- and I waited and waited with no call or follow-up email. I'd just been "dissed" by the salesman, and I was unhappy about it and about this company because I'd twice rearranged my schedule to accommodate the salesman’s call.

Now it would have been fine if he had said at the beginning that he'd be happy to talk to me when I felt like I'd be closer to making a purchase. It would also have been OK, if he had emailed an apology after missing the appointment. He did neither!

So when I was thinking of an example of how poor communication with prospects can impact a company's online reputation, I thought of this salesman and his company. Athough I'm only an unhappy prospect, I can still impact this company’s Web Word of Mouth.

About a week after I initially published this post with the salesman’s name and the company name, I got a follow-up email from the salesman and eventually an apology from his boss. The company was monitoring its online Word of Mouth and my blog post popped up on their radar. They handled the situation effectively and although I’m not a customer, I could become one in the future.

The lesson here is that it's not only your customers who are contributing to the "customer experience" that builds word of mouth. It's also the people around town who might see one of your vehicles being driven erratically, it's the people who know and like you outside your business, it's the employees who believe in your vision or those who see it as a sham, and it's the prospects who never become customers because of a bad experience with your sales force. Look for ways to build better business communications outside, as well as inside, the traditional marketing funnel.

Web Word of Mouth can do wonders for your business, because it can start from non-customer conversations, even when you have very few customers. Conversely, Web Word of Mouth can cause you problems, even when surveys indicate that customer satisfaction levels are high, because these non-customer conversations highlight some dissatisfaction with your business. Your business communications for customers and for non-customers must promote positive Web Word of Mouth if you want your business to succeed. Look around your business, talk to your employees, promote a positive face for your business in the community, and talk to your neighbors. If we can help you develop a business experience that promotes Web Word of Mouth, please contact us.

How to Avoid Hiring an Uninformed Web Developer

2009-11-29T18:08:00.002-06:00

Jill Whalen contributes blog posts to High Rankings Advisor and Search Engine Land. She recently posted a list of 85 reasons why Web designers and developers keep search engine optimization (SEO) firms in business. Her original blog post is well worth reading, but I’ve decided to discuss several of her reasons in some detail, because I’ve seen these issues myself in working with small businesses and their developers.

Search engine optimization is the process of building and updating your website so that it ranks well in search engine results lists. If you sell locally in a small town and have no competition, your SEO problem is relatively simple. You just need to rank well for the goods or services you provide in that town. If you sell nationally or internationally, then your SEO problem grows considerably more complex and your challenge is greater.

Whether you sell locally or globally, it’s very important that your web developer has the knowledge needed to help you win a good ranking for your website. Many of them don’t. If you hire an SEO-ignorant developer, your website will rest forever in obscurity unless you hire an SEO firm later on, at significant cost.

So how do you know if your developer can build you a website that is search engine optimized? You’ll have to research the web developer and be prepared to ask questions. Here are some things you can do.

Try searching for the keywords, “website designer” and “website developer” and your city or town. If the developer you’re considering doesn’t show up in a good position in a Google search, that developer doesn’t know enough about SEO to help you.

If your designer tells you that SEO is impossible or they confess to not understanding much about the topic, shop elsewhere. No matter how beautiful their work, no one will see it if your customers can’t use a search engine to find your site.

If your designer tells you that adding words into a Meta keyword tag is SEO, then the developer is about 10 years out of date. That method of SEO was abused years ago when developers loaded websites with irrelevant Meta tags, hoping to ensnare extra web searchers. The major search engines probably ignore Meta keyword tags now, so look somewhere else for a developer.

If your designer asks you to provide your own website copy, you should look elsewhere for a web developer. The search engines rank your web pages according to the keywords they find when they index your website. If you’re tasked with providing the website copy, without completing and understanding the necessary keyword research, then your website will not rank well.

If your web developer tells you to provide the developer with a list of the pages you want on your website, find another developer. The developer should help you decide what pages you’ll need, with SEO as one of the considerations for naming those pages.

These are just a few of the issues that should be discussed as you interview and select a web development team. If you’d like us to participate in planning your web development project or finding a qualified developer, please contact us for more information. We can either give you some general guidance at the start of your project, or we can participate as third party experts to ensure that SEO and usability is planned into your development project. If you already have a website, we’d be happy to review your site from a search engine and ease of use perspective.

Building Customer Loyalty -- In-N-Out Burger & Web Word of Mouth

2009-11-29T17:53:00.001-06:00

During my many years in the Navy, I learned that if you take care of your people, your people will take care of you. Business Week recently profiled In-N-Out Burger -- a business that been very successful in building Word of Mouth, in part by valuing employees. These loyal employees create loyal customers.

Photo credit: Anthony Smolenski

Business Week recently published an article by Stacy Perman, with an excerpt from her new book, In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules. Founded in 1948, In-N-Out Burger has remained a private, family-owned company that beats Burger King and McDonald’s on per store sales despite virtually no advertising. The company relies on word of mouth driven by the quality of the food and staff at each of its restaurants.

According to the article, the founder’s son, Rich Snyder, shared his father’s belief that running a successful fast-food business was more about the people running the stores than cutting corners or using high-efficiency equipment. In 1984, he started In-N-Out University to fill the staffing pipeline with quality managers. About 80% of the Company’s managers start at the bottom, picking up trash, and they have to work full-time at an In-N-Out store for a year before attending the University. The Company’s growth strategy is to expand only as fast as it can grow the qualified management to staff new stores.

According to the Business Week article, Rich once sought the advice of a food industry consultant who advised that the Company could save a ton of money by slashing salaries. Rich ignored the advice and he continues to pay his associates at least $2 to $3 above minimum wage. Store managers make at least $100,000 and are eligible for bonuses tied to store sales. Rich also provides an expensive set of benefits including companywide picnics and trips to Europe for store managers who meet their goals.

Because they are treated well, In-N-Out employees have one of the lowest turnover rates in the industry. A manager’s typical tenure is 14 years and even part-time associates stay for an average of two years. This cuts the problems associated with always training new staff and it increases the quality of the food and service provided to the customers.

Because the food and service are so consistently good, its customers spread the message. They wear the Company’s T-shirts, they put the Company’s bumper stickers on their cars, and some of them are evangelists, bringing in friends for something they call the “conversion.” The In-N-Out website allows fans to plot the locations of convenient In-N-Out stores before leaving on a trip.

You can do the same thing for your business. Train your employees, reward your employees for great performance, encourage their ideas for improvement and innovation, and pay to retain the best of your staff, and you will benefit from their efforts to grow the ranks of your loyal customers and build Web and traditional Word of Mouth.

If you need some help in building a work force that drives word of mouth for your business, please contact us.

New Visibility for Local Businesses in Google Search Engine Results Pages

2009-11-29T17:28:00.001-06:00

Miriam Ellis detailed recent changes to Google's search engine results pages in this excellent article in Search Engine Guide.

These changes make it much easier for potential customers to find and use Google Maps local listings, and they will likely make the local listings provided by other websites like Merchant Circle, Insiderpages, Yellowbook.com, and Yelp much less important to local businesses and consumers. In the past, someone searching for a local business was required to input the business type and the location in the search box. Now however, now Google recognizes the IP location the search is originating from and returns local results appropriate for that location. So if you search for car repair and your internet service is provided by a company in Houston, TX, you’ll see local results for Houston car repair shops at the top of the search engine results page, even though you didn’t specify “Houston” in the search. This change greatly increases the Web visibility benefits of claiming Google Maps local business listings.

Since many Web searchers apparently don’t know to use a location in a search for a local business, this change will provide better results for these consumers. It also makes consumers much more aware of the existence of local business listings, and it certainly enhances the importance of Google Maps local business listings in a universe of listings provided by such websites as Citysearch, Insiderpages, Yellowbook, Merchant Circle and others. This makes it more important than ever for business owners to claim their local business listings and the one from Google Maps should be at the top of the “to-do” list.

One thing that strikes me when I look at local results from Google or Yahoo is that many of them are incorrect in some way. Businesses are depicted at the wrong locations on the map or well-known businesses are not listed at all. Businesses that have closed continue to be listed alongside the active ones. If you own a local business, by claiming your listings you can ensure that the information in those listings remains up to date. If you do, your business will benefit from the changes that Google is making.

Google local results are presented in a short list, with a notation of the number of reviews recorded for each business. If you want your business to stand out in that list, it helps to be the business with the most customer reviews. Google pulls in reviews from some other sources -- Insiderpages is one of them -- so your customers’ reviews don’t have to be posted at Google. However, you’re helping yourself if you regularly ask your regular customers to post reviews for you at Google or Insiderpages, and then you thank them when they follow through.

This new Google feature doesn’t work as intended outside major cities. I live in Wharton, TX, which is about 60 miles southwest of Houston. I tried the Google feature by typing in “car dealers” and the local results that appeared were from Houston. Google makes it easy to then correct the results by changing the location, but the consumer will have to take that second step. I also tried the search with my laptop using a broadband card and was served results from a suburb of Dallas more than five hours away by car. The ISP associated with my broadband card must have been from that area. Again though, it’s easy for the user to click the “Change Location” link at the top of the results list to get the correct results for the user’s actual location.

Please contact us to help you get started with your Google local business listing.

Local Business Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

2009-11-29T17:15:00.001-06:00

The principles of search engine optimization or SEO are certainly important for most local businesses as they are for national and regional businesses. However, the placement of local business listings trumps the organic search results for many Google, Yahoo, and Bing searches. So it is incredibly important for local businesses to claim their local listings and make them as effective as possible in building word of mouth. This the fastest, least expensive way for you to build Web visibility for your business.

If you have a local business, you should start your SEO process by searching for your business on several search engines -- Google, Yahoo, and MSN -- and with different key words that your customers might use. So for example, if you’re an insurance agent, search for that phrase as well as insurance, insurance broker, and anything else you can think of. Of course, you need to add the locations you serve in your searches.

You’ll see where your business ranks for local search, and you’ll likely see a version of the results listing in the screenshot above. This is the Google results listing for a restaurant search in Wharton, TX, and the Google business listings appear at the top of the organic results, ahead of the individual web pages for the businesses listed. So if you see these kinds of results for your business, you will understand the need to claim your business listings and keep them updated.

In fact, if you have a local business, claiming and then updating your business listings is probably the best thing you can do to enhance the search engine performance of your business. A customer looking for a restaurant will likely make a choice from this list without visiting the various website listings presented below it.

If you are the business with the most reviews in the listing, potential customers will naturally click the link to read your reviews and then click your website link to visit your site. Help yourself out by making your business the one that these potential customers will select by asking your regular customers to post reviews and recommendations for your business.

If you need help preparing your local business listings or you'd like to start collecting recommendations from your customers, please contact us.

Understanding the New FTC Guidelines

2009-11-29T17:01:00.002-06:00

The Federal Trade Commission has announced new guidelines for bloggers and reviewers commenting on business products and services. If you receive compensation of any kind or free products or services in exchange for your reviews or endorsements, you could potentially violate these new rules.

Understanding the New FTC Guidelines

View more documents from Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

What is Web Word of Mouth?

2009-11-29T16:29:00.001-06:00

Photo by Jerald Bernard

For our purposes, Web Word of Mouth is the sum total of all the information about your business or organization, you, and your employees, that is available for viewing on the Web. In other words, it’s the information on the Web that a prospective customer might use in deciding whether to purchase from your business. It’s also the information that an existing customer might use in deciding whether to continue a relationship with your business.

Online word of mouth is also what people do with this information. If they are prospective customers, do they buy from you? If they’re past customers, have they recommended you to their friends? Does this information engender a feeling of trust and confidence in your business? Is the best information easy to find and in a format that is easy for customers to use?

It doesn’t have to be about your business -- it can also be about you. If I’m looking for a car repair facility, and find online references to a DUI arrest of the owner of my first choice, that business will rapidly move to the bottom of my list. If I find a reference to another repair shop’s sponsorship of a Special Olympics event, it might move up my list.

It can be about your employees. A friend of mine, who’s a partner in a large law firm, recently told me that her firm had fired an associate from his six figure job because he had complained about the firm in his blog. While firing him might not be the best solution for the employee morale problem, that blog post could influence the firm’s clients to look elsewhere for legal work.

The first thing you should do to launch a Web Word of Mouth program is to start monitoring the Web for positive and negative references to your business. If you run a non-profit organization or a charity, you should do the same thing. Add searches for you and for your employees. What to do when you find information will be the subject of future posts; however, it’s most important that you get started in assessing your word of mouth online.

If you have questions about monitoring the Web for Word of Mouth, please contact us.

The Great Trust Offensive for Small Business

2009-11-22T14:19:00.001-06:00

Photo credit: Thad Zajdowicz

In late September, Business Week published a story titled, "The Great Trust Offensive." In the story, David Kiley and Bert Helm describe the new reality for business -- that companies finally realize that they can't generate trust through the PR department anymore. Large companies like American Express and McDonald's understand that the days of consumers acting as the passive targets of advertising are over. People now use the Web to research purchases and read customer reviews about products and services before they buy. The Web and Web-enabled phones give companies a cheap way to reach consumers and adjust the message reaching consumers. To reach consumers in this new era, these brands are using new "trust-focused" advertising themes.

The problem with this new approach described in the article is that it doesn't engage with consumers -- it just shifts the stream of advertising to a "you can trust us" theme. Perhaps that helps connect with consumers because consumers might be less likely to tune out (or Tivo out) the message, but it still misses the point of the new age of permissive marketing. That point is that consumers are looking for less advertising and more two-way engagement with brands. They are less interested in slick commercials from United than they are in listening to Dave Carroll's video titled, "United Breaks Guitars." Successful brands like Amazon.com, Cabella's, and WalMart encourage customers to leave public product feedback, even when that feedback might dampen demand for unpopular products.

If you run a small business, you've probably already realized that you can't spend your way to a trusting relationship with your customers. You have to earn that trust in every transaction. However, the permissive, powerful marketing channels provided by the Web give you the opportunity to leverage that earned trust in the form of product and business reviews, available for consumer researchers on the Web. The Web has leveled the playing field with the big brands, giving small businesses the ability to use online evidence of consumer trust to chip away at the big brands' market share. If you have a small business, let Rust Reviews, LLC, show you how to leverage your good customer relationships to grow your business using the Web.

Build Word of Mouth Marketing Online with Your Letters and Emails of Appreciation

2009-11-16T14:19:00.003-06:00

Photo by Sanja Gjenero

Most good businesses that have been operating for awhile have collected letter and emails expressing appreciation for noteworthy performance. Some businesses also collect customer feedback and they have files of great customer comments. All of this information, if posted for those businesses online, could boost word of mouth marketing efforts and results. Consumers and businesses are looking for this kind of information to use in deciding where to buy.

Some businesses post a few customer comments on their websites as testimonials. However, the businesses rarely update them and the testimonials displayed are often several years old. Most consumers are also skeptical of such testimonials -- since the testimonials have not been collected by an independent third-party website, they could have been written by the business’s owner and the owner’s family.

Rust Reviews provides a solution for small businesses that want to put this customer good will to work as online Word of Mouth. We will verify each letter, email, or comment card with the originator and obtain permission to post the comments to the Web. We’ll create a search-engine optimized listing for your business to display these customer recommendations and any comments you might make to respond to specific recommendations. We’ll make it easy for you to link directly to these customer recommendations from your website, Finally, we will help you collect additional customer recommendations, directly posted to your Web listing.

Those letters of appreciation and customer comments are like gold in the ground, waiting to be mined. Let Rust Reviews extract that customer good will from your filing cabinets and email archives and put it to work for your business. Contact Rust Reviews to learn how to get your letters and emails of appreciation working for your business.

What Are Online Local Business Listings? -- Web Visibility Tip

2009-11-16T13:59:00.002-06:00

The three major search engines -- Google, Yahoo, and Bing -- provide free online business listings for local businesses. Even better, these listings are provided at the top of the search results page where consumers are most likely to see them. If you own a local business, you are foolish if you don’t take advantage of these.

An article on our website discusses online business listings and how important they are for local businesses. However, not all local businesses are familiar with them. This blog post is intended to bring you up to speed on what a local business listing is and how it can affect you if you own a small business.

Local listings have existed on the Web for years. Various companies have purchased business databases and create websites with the information. Some of the database information is from the phone companies and some comes from other sources, but the result is a sort of yellow pages on the Web. The listings have your business name, location, and telephone numbers, and they may also provide mapping information, hours of operation, forms of payment you accept, a description of your business, and customer reviews. The sample above comes from Google's local listings.

Many companies provide and promote these listings including Google, Yahoo, Merchant Circle, Insider Pages, Kudzu, Super Pages, and the Yellow Pages. All of these companies provide small business owners with a free basic listing, which can be updated and corrected by the business owner merely by claiming the listing. Business owners can also update these listings whenever the information changes. Think about the paper Yellow Pages where you couldn't change your business advertisement for a year. These are a wonderful marketing bargain this is for small business owners, and if you own a local business, you should claim the listings for your business as quickly as you can.

Some of the listings have become even more important lately. Google claims over 70% of consumer search and Google's local listings are likely the first items presented to your prospective customers when searching for your products or services. Claim the Google listings first! Then move on to the Yahoo listing and the Microsoft/Bing listing before claiming any of the others. Claiming multiple listings may actually increase the “trust rating” given your business by the search engines and your listing may be boosted to the top of the search engine results list by your actions.

Google encourages businesses to submit pictures and videos with listings. Others provide for picture submissions from your customers. Google also provides listing owners with access to a Small Business Center dashboard, which offers simple analytics describing traffic to the listing. All of the listing providers are increasing the incentives for your business to participate.

Do yourself a favor and claim your business listings. If you don’t have the time or the expertise to take on the task, Rust Reviews can do it for you. If you have questions about online business listings or about customer reviews, please contact us. If you do nothing, you'll be wasting a very powerful and FREE Web marketing opportunity.

How to Handle Bad Reviews if You're a Lawyer

2009-11-16T13:51:00.001-06:00

Photo by Jason Morrison

While the concept of online client reviews strikes fear into the hearts of many business owners, lawyers are especially apprehensive. That's because attorneys are prohibited from disclosing client information, except in very limited circumstances. So a client may complain about the result of a trial and blame the attorney for the outcome, but the lawyer, in defense, cannot explain that the client perjured himself or withheld information from his lawyer that came out at trial. One party in a divorce action might blame his lawyer in a Web review for not receiving custody of his children, but the lawyer cannot defend online by saying that the client was an admitted drug abuser or was abusive to the children. So lawyers and other professional service providers with client confidentiality concerns might fear a negative review on the Web for very good reasons.

What can a lawyer do if a negative Web review surfaces? There are some things you can do to respond to a negative review, and here's a list in no particular order:

•Post a response to apologize for the client's dissatisfaction and offer to meet the client at no charge to discuss the situation. Showing concern for the client's opinion and making an effort to respond will blunt the effects of a negative review. This is the best thing to do if you have a prayer of changing an unhappy client to a satisfied client.

•Post a response explaining that you are unable to offer a defense because of your obligation to maintain client confidentiality. Most people are not aware of a lawyer's obligation to protect client information, and they will respect a lawyer who refuses to respond in-kind to statements made in anger.

•Contact the client and ask him or her to withdraw the review. Most review websites allow someone posting a review to delete it at a later time, and even more websites allow a reviewer to modify a review. If you talk to the client and ask him or her to delete or modify the review, it can be the first step in repairing the situation. Perhaps the client will respond to your efforts to repair your relationship and he or she will become your loyal supporter.

•Ignore the review. This is not the thing to do. The review will not go away and people reading the review will assume that you've not responded because the review is true.

Before responding to any review, you may want to call the ethics hotline for your state bar association to discuss your options. Keep in mind though that the best way to defend against a bad review is to have lots of positive ones from satisfied clients already on the Web. If you want to start collecting client reviews, or you need help monitoring your Web reputation, or you want some assistance in responding to a bad online review, please contact Rust Reviews .

Negative Reviews Can Be Good for Your Business -- Web Reputation Tip

2009-07-13T11:40:00.000-05:00

In his Small Business Search Marketing Blog, Matt McGee recently posted an excellent article titled, "5 Ways Negative Reviews are Good for Business."

The following are Matt's points with some comments I've added:

They create trust. People are suspicious that reviews are filtered to remove any negative comments. A negative review every now and then adds credibility to the positive reviews posted for a business. The lack of any negative comment also makes business-provided testimonials better than nothing, but not much. People do not expect that testimonials represent an honest cross-section of a business's customers.
They provide honest feedback. Most business owners rarely hear from unhappy customers. An unhappy customer will tell their neighbors, friends, and relatives about a bad experience at your business, but they will not tell you. Web reviews give you, the business owner, a window to what's being said about you and an opportunity to use that information to change your business.
They can improve your website search engine optimization. Customer reviews tell you how your customers view and discuss your products and services. This information can help you update your website to respond to those discussions using the same words your customers use. You'll rank better for the search terms most likely used by your customers and your website will respond to their questions and concerns more effectively.
They help you make better business decisions. If your customers complain about one aspect of your service or about a particular product, it's probably wise to make changes. Prioritizing changes in this way is a more successful and cheaper approach than hiring a consultant to survey your customers.
They offer you a golden opportunity. If you can respond effectively to the reviewer and turn a bad situation into a positive one, you'll likely create a new loyal customer and win over the many prospects who are interested in how you respond when problems arise. These prospects will have more confidence and trust going into a business relationship with you, because they know you'll work with them when something unforeseen happens.

Note that these benefits only occur if you are monitoring the Web for new reviews and if you respond quickly when a negative review surfaces. Most small businesses still don't check the Web for reputation information. If you don't and if a negative review sits on display for six months or a year or more, you've given up on most things positive that could happen. So either resolve to monitor the Web for reviews of your business or hire a firm like Rust Reviews to do it for you.

Google Maps Business Listings Become More Important -- Web Tip

2009-07-08T12:37:00.000-05:00

Google has recently changed the way it returns its Google Maps Business Listings in search results, and these changes will have a huge impact on the way consumers and your customers encounter and use these business listings on the Web.

I don't know exactly when the Google change occurred, but until a few weeks ago, if you wanted to find a website for a specific local business, you would search for the business name and location. Using the standard Google Web search box, you would get a results list with the business website (hopefully) placed near the top. You would not get a Google Maps Business Listing with the results, unless you actually searched in Google Maps. Now, using Google's standard Web search and the business name and location will return the Google Maps business listing in the top spot of the search results, if Google has a listing for the business.

With this change, as a local business owner, no matter how much time, effort, and money you spend on your website and on search engine optimization, you won't be able to move your website above the Google Maps Business Listing in search results. Customers and prospects will very likely click into that Google Business Listing before they visit your website.

So what should you do if you are a local business owner? This change makes Google's listings more important than ever -- if you own a local business and you haven't claimed and updated your listing, you need to do it NOW!

You also need to check your Google business listing on a regular basis because it will display consolidated Web references to and reviews of your business. Without checking it frequently, you will not know what this information says about your business.

Now more than ever, you need to ask your best customers to post reviews for you on Google. If you run a customer-focused business, many will respond to your requests. If your Google Business Listing is updated with current information and you have great customer reviews displayed there, the Listing will complement your website to bring motivated customers to your business.

Rust Reviews can help you use this Google change to build Web Word of Mouth for your business -- let us explain how!

How to Handle a Bad Review -- Web Reputation Tip

2009-07-01T21:46:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I described my experience with an Internet marketing company. As a prospect, not a customer, I was "dissed" by the sales rep when he failed to keep an appointment that he had set up only a few hours before. As a disappointed prospect, I blogged about my experience and used the company's name and the sales rep's in the blog.

This company did exactly what it should have done to make the situation right again and its response can serve as a model of action to others who might get a bad review online. Here's what that company did.

First, it found my blog post within a few days of appearing on the Web. By checking the analytics for my blog, I learned that someone had visited the blog on consecutive days by searching for "[company name] review" and "[company name] reputation." About a week later, I received an email from the sales rep, apologizing for missing our appointment and offering to reschedule. When I didn't respond immediately, the sales rep sent another email mentioning my blog post and asking to talk so that he could make things right. I checked my blog analytics again and found that someone had visited the blog several times using the search, "[sales rep name] [company name]." The sales rep never admitted that his company had found the blog post a week before, or that he had been directed to recontact me. However, I strongly suspect that he had been given direction to repair my "business experience" with his company. We had a cordial exchange via email and his supervisor called me a day or so later to give me the information I had originally sought from the sales rep. I have a positive feeling about this company again, and I'd recommend them to friends and clients.

So what should you do when you get a bad review or an unfavorable mention in a blog? First, you have to search the Web regularly for mention of your company name and "review" and "reputation." Otherwise, you'll never be aware of an unhappy client or prospect. Then you need to reconnect with your unhappy reviewer, and try to make things right. If you approach it like this company did, with an offer to try to resolve the situation, most people will be happy to accept and will delete their negative comments from the Web. Others might leave the negative comments, but will update their post to describe your company's efforts to repair the situation. Only a very few will refuse your offers to resolve the problem. For those situations, you can usually post a description of your efforts to satisfy the disgruntled client or prospect.

The worst thing you can do is ignore the unhappy customer or prospect and the second worst thing is to threaten or try to bully the reviewer. That conduct will often be reported in the customer's or prospect's next blog post or review and your reputation will take an even bigger hit on the Web.

Take the high road! Search for mention of your reputation online, and when you find it, respond in a positive way.

Website Design Tip -- Building A User Friendly Site

2009-05-06T14:23:00.000-05:00

Download time: I came across a website for a rural Midwest manufacturer marketing saddle and blanket racks for horse owners. The website was very attractive, but it included some video that downloaded with the homepage. It took some time for this to occur even on my broadband connection, and I can imagine that some of the company’s audience would be on dial up in rural areas. Those folks would probably give up on the home page load and order a saddle rack someplace else.

If you want to incorporate video, animation, or other large files in your website, make sure that you structure the website to operate without them and give visitors the option of downloading. That way, your customers using dial-up connections can still use your website.

Layout: Try to make your website easy to read and easy to navigate. A really great guest ranch I know has a business website that is incredibly busy with 26 primary navigation links scattered all over the home page, animated horses running across the page, and a background foliage scene that would give you a headache. A serious effort in condensing the links, removing the distracting animation, and removing the multicolored background would make the site much easier and more pleasant to use. Using the latest version of Firefox, I couldn't even view the homepage without installing plugins -- you don't want to force visitors to your site to install software just to see your homepage.

We would be happy to evaluate your website layout as a free service -- contact us for more information.

Web Reputation Tip -- What Are Online Business Listings?

2009-05-05T14:22:00.000-05:00

An article on our website discusses online business listings and how important they are for local businesses. However, not all local businesses are familiar with them. This blog post is intended to bring you up to speed on what a local business listing is and how it can affect you if you own a small business.

Local listings have existed on the Web for years. Various companies have purchased business databases and create websites with the information. Some of the database information is from the phone companies and some comes from other sources, but the result is a sort of yellow pages on the Web. The listings have your business name, location, and telephone numbers, and they may also provide mapping information, hours of operation, forms of payment you accept, a description of your business, and customer reviews. The sample here comes from Google's local listings.

Many companies provide and promote these listings including Google, Yahoo, Merchant Circle, Insider Pages, City Search, Kudzu, Super Pages, and the Yellow Pages. All of these companies provide small business owners with a free basic listing, which can be updated and corrected by the business owner merely by claiming the listing. Think about the paper Yellow Pages where you couldn't change your business advertisement for a year. These are a great deal for small business owners and you should claim the listings for your business.

Some of the listings have become even more important lately. Google claims over 70% of consumer search and Google's local listings are likely the first items presented to your prospective customers when searching for your products or services. Claim the Google listings first! These listings will often appear above your website if you have one. If your competitor has claimed its local listing and provided additional information and pictures to dress up the listing, it will stand out over the listings that have been neglected. If your competitor has also asked customers to provide business reviews on Google or affiliated sites, those reviews will further distinguish your competitor's listing from yours.

Do yourself a favor and claim your business listings, update the information, and then ask your customers to submit reviews for your business. If you have questions about online business listings or about customer reviews, please contact us. If you do nothing, you'll be wasting a very powerful web reputation opportunity.

Online Word of Mouth Requires Friction

2009-05-04T17:56:00.000-05:00

I follow Seth Godin's blog. Yesterday's post titled, "Friction Saves the Medium" talked about friction in communications. If the friction is stripped away, if it becomes too easy to communicate, then that method of communication will be overused and abused, and it will fall out of use.

Email is that way. Email marketers became spammers and now email marketing is regulated by law. Twitter is the latest incarnation of frictionless communications, and to prove Seth's point, the Twitter monthly retention rate is below 50%. Seth says that stamps are underrated, and friction rewards intent and creates scarcity. In other words, few people will take the time to write a letter and mail it, so those that do will stand out as exceptional. If you run a business, you want to be exceptional in your customers' eyes.

There are other ways to use friction. A month or so ago, my wife ordered a music CD from MyTexasMusic.com to get the latest release from our friend, Mike Blakely. When she unwrapped the CD from the cardboard mailer, there was a hand-written note inside the mailer thanking us for ordering. Sure there was a little friction involved in writing that note, but what a pleasant surprise and what a great way of expressing appreciation to customers.

I think Seth is right. Although we want to make use of emails, Twitter, texting, and the other frictionless methods of communication, we also need to remember to use a pen or a stamp now and then -- even in building online word of mouth. Be exceptional to your customers, and if you need some assistance in building online word of mouth for your business, please contact us.

Web Reputation Tip -- Does One Bad Review Make a Bad Reputation?

2009-04-28T13:17:00.000-05:00

The short answer is that it can if it's the only review of your business that prospective customers can find. However, if you work to build online word of mouth for your business, you'll never face that situation. You'll have lots of positive online reviews to outweigh any negative ones.

It's not that hard to collect customer reviews and recommendations if you work at it. For example, you can provide your customers with a feedback card asking them to submit reviews for your business at Google or Yahoo. Some of your customers may also be members of Angie's List or they might submit reviews on Yelp.com or some other website. It's not so important where the review is left -- it's much more important that your customer posts a business review for you somewhere. If you need help developing a customer review feedback card or collecting customer reviews, please contact us.

Many small business owners have the impression that online reviews will likely be negative. Not so -- most online reviews are generally positive in tone. However, even if you receive a negative review, you can reply to it in a responsible and considerate way, and thereby demonstrate that you will respond effectively to customer issues. If you were aware of the situation before reading the review, post a reply detailing the steps you've taken to solve the problem. If you weren't aware of the problem, urge the customer to contact you to discuss a remedy and promise to work to resolve the matter.

There is a major car dealer in a nearby city with a single, very negative review online to represent the dealer's customer reputation. This dealer has done work on my truck, and I was very satisfied so I don't think the bad review represents many or most of the dealer's customers. Don't be like this dealership! Take action now to ask your customers for online feedback and respond to both the positive and the negative reviews you receive. If you need help setting up an online reputation program, please contact us.

Photography credit: "Feedback form: excellent" by Dominik Gwarek

Business Reputation Tip -- Word of Mouth Research

2009-04-24T16:27:00.000-05:00

Talking to small business owners, I've found that most don't do any reputation or word of mouth research for their business. They may invest in a website or create a Facebook page and then they assume that they have control of their image and their message by creating this presence on the Web.

Unfortunately, it's not so. I recently did some reputation research for a small manufacturing company in California. When I searched Google for the company's name, I found its website as the top result, but I also found a news release from a law firm at #3, which described winning a major settlement from that company in a breach of contract action. I'm sure that the company wasn't even aware of the news release and its prominent position in relevant search results. If you run a small business, you should make sure that you're never in the same situation -- make it a weekly practice to do reputation or word of mouth research.

Once you're aware of your online reputation, you're in a position to build the effectiveness of your Web word of mouth marketing program. If you remain ignorant of your business reputation online, you'll miss opportunities to grow your business.

If we can help you get your word of mouth research effort off the ground, please contact us.

Business Website Tip -- Two Items for Every Developer Contract

2009-04-23T15:12:00.000-05:00

I recently presented at a seminar for small business owners and was preceded by another presentation from a local web developer. While I listened, some of the talk turned to copyright ownership, and that reminded me of some experiences I'd had working with developers to build RustReviews.com. Another important aspect of a website development agreement was not covered at all. I've decided to blog about these issues to remind you to make them a part of your website development contracts.

The first issue is with what is generally known as intellectual property. This is the broad term covering copyright, trademarks, service marks, patents, and trade secrets. My intent here is not to offer legal advice, but rather to give you a warning to include intellectual property ownership as a topic covered in your development contract. You should also take the time and effort to understand what the contract says about this issue -- don't just accept an explanation from the developer. If the issue is not addressed properly, you may spend thousands or maybe tens of thousands of dollars on a web presence and then find that you only own a license to display and operate the website. The developer may retain ownership of the domain name, website, and trademarks. Unfortunately, you may not become aware of the problem until after you've build traffic to your site and established your brand.

I strongly recommend that you get an attorney to look at any development contract from an intellectual property standpoint. Lawyers vary in their knowledge of intellectual property issues, so you're best off with someone who specializes in intellectual property and the Web. Your web development contract should make clear exactly what intellectual property you'll own at the end of the project, and it should also require the developer to cooperate to acquire copyrights, trademarks, patents, etc.

If you can't afford a lawyer, you can get some information from the US Patent and Trademark Office and the US Copyright Office. These website provide general information about copyrights, trademarks, and patents and also walk you through the steps of registering a copyright or trademark or filing a patent application. Again however, I strongly recommend that you get a lawyer to help you with this.

The other contract issue often ignored is the need to establish completion milestones in the website development contract, with payments tied to them. For a small information website or blog, this could be very simple, but even for a simple website, the an early milestone should give you the opportunity to look at mockups of the website layout and functions. In other words, the developer should give you the opportunity to see what your website will look like when complete and also provide you with an understanding of how it will function. By contracting for this milestone, you can ensure that you and the developer are on the same page and you can fix any misunderstandings before they become expensive to fix. For a more complex site, you may find that the developer can't meet your requirements and that it's time to look for another one. That's why your development contract should give you the option of walking away if you're not satisfied with the work at the first milestone. Of course, you'd still have to pay the developer for work done on your behalf, but you should be able to cancel the contract for very little money when compared with the whole development project.

Intellectual property and contract milestones are often the topics ignored or poorly addressed in web development contracts. Make sure you do your homework and cover these items in your contract or you'll have to live with the consequences. If you have any questions or you need help planning your website development, please contact us.

Blog to Build Word of Mouth for Your Business

2009-04-22T12:14:00.000-05:00

A recent article on eMarketer.com, "Blogging Has Come a Long Way, Baby," discusses the growth in numbers of blogs and in blog readers. According to the article, 27.9 million US Internet users blog at least once a month. By 2013, it's expected that 37.6 million users will be updating blogs monthly.

Even more impressive are the numbers of blog readers. eMarketer estimates that in 2009, 96.6 million US Internet users will read a blog at least once a month. By 2013, they estimate that the number will increase to 128.2 million users or 58% of all US Internet users. Can your business afford to ignore this channel to your customers?

The eMarketer article also notes that the lines are disappearing between a blog run by a large company and the free or low-cost blogs provided by Google, WordPress, and and TypePad. So if you have a small business, and you want a medium to deliver a message to lots of potential customers, a free blog might be a good thing to try.

What can you do with a blog? Just about anything you can do with a website -- collect customer feedback and reviews, announce business events, provide articles helpful to your customers, display photos and videos, and so on. Blogs will appear in search engine results just like a website, so its important to apply your keyword research when drafting your blog posts. Also remember that today's blogs are about "conversations", so give your readers a chance to comment on your posts and limit the "marketing speak" you use.

The three blogging platforms mentioned above are easy to set up, easy to customize, and easy to use so why not use one of them to build word of mouth for your business. If you need help getting started, please contact us.

Marketing Speak in a Web 2.0 World

2009-04-17T21:11:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to attend a webinar sponsored by Hubspot featuring Brent Leary, co-founder of CRM Essentials. The webinar was titled, "Using Social Media to Attract More Customers" and it's available for download. There was lots of great information presented, but one point was particularly relevant to me. It was that "marketing speak" doesn't work in the Web 2.0 world.

A few days before, I'd looked through the new website launched by a friend's company. It contained a blog, but the initial blog posts were all marketing pitches for the company. To make it worse, there was no way to comment on the blog posts. That functionality had been omitted.

Web 2.0 is about conversations -- that's what social media are about. A traditional marketing pitch is one way speech. If you use marketing pitches in your blogs, on Twitter, on Facebook, et al., you'll find yourself talking to yourself most of the time. You won't be creating the relationships, that will build word of mouth for your business, solidify your relationships with existing customers, and establish relationships with new ones. If you need additional information or if you have questions, please contact us.

Word of Mouth Worthy Customer Service Is An Attitude

2009-04-16T15:24:00.000-05:00

I recently had an experience with a good online company that left me shaking my head. I placed an order for pergolide -- a daily medication for my aging horse with Cushings disease -- with ThrivingPets.com. During the order process, I was given an option to select shipping, and I picked the "Ground FedEx - USPS" option, which was listed for $5. I also added a comment in the order special request box asking for FedEx shipment because I've had problems with misrouted mail. Since the order form priced shipping FedEx Ground or USPS at one price, it appeared to me that I'd have the ability to select either one.

The medicine was shipped USPS despite my request. When I received the shipping confirmation, I sent Thriving Pets an email asking why they'd shipped USPS when I'd requested FedEx Ground. Their response said that they normally ship USPS whenever the item is less than 13 ounces. The response made no mention of my request in the order -- it was apparently ignored.

A business with great customer service would have read my comment in the order and would have contacted me before doing something else. A great business would have responded to my email with an apology for the mix up. A "word of mouth worthy" business would have modified its order form to give customers the option of selecting FedEx Ground at a higher price, if necessary.

Many, perhaps most, businesses won't make the effort. That creates an opportunity for those who do. Create great word of mouth for your business by reacting with a great attitude when something goes wrong. If your ordering process creates misunderstandings, then fix it.

Does this mean I won't order from Thriving Pets again? Probably not, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend the business. When dealing with your customers, you'll have opportunities to shine. Take them, and word of mouth will do amazing things for your business. If you have any questions or you'd like some help in developing "word of mouth worthy" customer service, please contact us.

Medical Doctors Attempt to Prohibit Customer Reviews

2009-04-09T18:25:00.000-05:00

Unhappy at receiving negative reviews from patients, some doctors have been asking their patients to sign agreements waiving their right to post any reviews. The subject was covered by a recent story by Jacqui Cheng on Ars Technica. The doctors apparently argue that the reviews are nothing more than tabloid journalism and that a doctor's practice could be damaged by such criticism. About 2000 doctors have signed on with a monitoring company called Medical Justice that provides the agreements to doctors and then attempts to enforce these agreements by searching online for violations.

Doctors are in the same position as lawyers, counselors, and other professionals who have a duty to protect patient or client information. Certainly they cannot respond to a review with information that would disclose a patient's or client's identity or provide information about a specific case. However, it's not normally necessary for them to do so. If an occasional patient is disappointed with the standard of care received by a physician and posts a negative review, the physician's best response is to post a reply asking the patient to contact his or her office to discuss the matter in order to reach an amicable solution to the problem. Most good doctors and lawyers would want to know if a client were dissatisfied and would want to take action to remedy the situation. Good doctors and other professionals will get mostly good reviews and an occasional poor one with a sincere response will enhance the credibility of the good reviews.

However, there are doctors with no people skills or poor medical skills and lawyers who don't return client phone calls or are incompetent. For those professionals, a series of poor client reviews is an excellent way to warn the public to seek services elsewhere.

Do you provide professional services? If you need assistance in responding to reviews, please call us.

Web Reputation Tip -- Should a survey determine what you want to know or what the customer wants to tell you?

2009-02-20T13:13:00.000-06:00

Call me crazy, but I think a survey should provide an opportunity for your customers to tell you what's important to them instead of what you want to know. Surveys have a bad reputation because they usually seem to be structured to gather data for a compensation system or are based on some preconceived notion of what's important to customers.

Several days ago I received a survey call from AT&T to ask me why I had canceled service. I had dropped AT&T business DSL service to my office because I didn't use it -- not because I was dissatisfied with it. I found that I couldn't cancel service on the AT&T website so I had to talk to an AT&T telephone agent. The first one I talked to was pleasant enough, but when she found out I was calling to cancel I was rerouted to one of the "customer retention" agents. After a long hold period, she came on the line and started the hard sell to keep me as a DSL customer. Her pitch also included lower rates for DSL, which ticked me off because it seems wrong for a customer to have to quit to get a better rate. After a much longer-than-needed call, I finally got a promise to disconnect DSL.

The survey call a few days later was supposed to gather data concerning my "customer experience" with my service call. I launched into an explanation of what had ticked me off during my service call, but it was soon obvious that the survey representative had no way to record the information I was giving her. She just has a structured set of questions, that were irrelevant to my experience, that I was supposed to answer on a scale of one to five. Apparently, she had no way to record comments along the way.

So AT&T is now studying my survey results, which will affect their marketing and operations. However, the company didn't collect information about what I actually thought about my customer experience. AT&T is spending lots of money and collecting garbage for data.

How to avoid this mistake? Include lots of comment blocks in surveys and review forms. Sure it's difficult for you to do a statistical analysis on comments, but by taking the time to review what the customer is saying to you in his or her own words, you'll get better guidance about ways that you can improve your business and keep your customers happy.

Using Video to Build Word of Mouth

2009-02-16T14:44:00.000-06:00

One of the best examples of using video to build word of mouth for a small business is from Saddle Technology Incorporated in Billings, Montana. I came across their website several months ago after I was bucked off my horse. I was feeling a little bit "chilled" about new injuries and that caution was hampering my riding. With breakaway stirrups, I thought I could make sure that I wouldn't get hung up and dragged if I were thrown again.

The video showed some clips of people falling while barrel racing and being hung up in a stirrup and it included a demonstration of how the STI stirrup worked and why it was different from other breakaway stirrups. From watching the falls, I realized that there were lots of ways I could get hung in a stirrup, and that although more expensive than the competition, their stirrup provided some additional safety features that could prevent injury. I decided to go with the STI stirrups and I've been very pleased with them, although I haven't tested them with another buck off.

The video was compelling and persuasive in ways that a written description never could be. It looks like was professionally edited but it contains mostly amateur video. If you have a decent video camera and some movie editing software like Apple's iMovie, you could create something just as effective for your business.

Is there some thing about your product or service that would sell better with a demonstration? Can you demonstrate a need for your product or service with video clips? If so, you should consider using video to build your word-of-mouth marketing using the Web.

If you'd like assistance getting YouTube or other social media working for your business, please contact us.

Word of Mouth is about conversations

2009-02-16T13:17:00.000-06:00

Traditional marketing is about interrupting the customer with a catchy, intrusive message about a product or service. Potential customers are watching television, listening to the radio, reading a newspaper, or driving down the highway, and the advertisement interrupts them. They can't easily get away from it so they're exposed to the ad for some brief period before they can continue with what they were doing. Things like TiVo and "Do Not Call" lists help consumers block advertising and they use those features when they can. Traditional marketing is like a "loudspeaker" booming messages to mostly unwilling recipients.

Most small businesses are often using the new media just like the old. They build their websites to blast an advertising message to visitors -- "we have the lowest prices, the best service, etc." But on the Web, consumers have don't have to listen to the same old intrusive advertising and they won't any longer than it takes them to hit the "back" button. If you want to build word of mouth for your business on the Web, you have to encourage a conversation with your customers and website visitors. Put away the loudspeaker and provide some suggestions or advice demonstrating your subject matter expertise. Ask your customers for suggestions and reviews. Try to engage them in building your business.

If you move from using a loudspeaker to conducting a conversation, you'll find that your customers will become more loyal to your business, they'll tell their friends about their experiences with your business, and your business will grow. It's not hard to do and it's not expensive, but it takes a mental shift to get conversations working for you.

If you have questions or you'd like assistance in building a web presence, please contact us.

What is Web Word of Mouth

2009-01-31T09:59:00.000-06:00

Web word of mouth is traditional word of mouth marketing using the low-cost and no-cost tools available on the Web. Traditional word-of-mouth marketing relies on customer conversations passing word of a business reputation. Web word-of-mouth works the same way to amplify those conversations and extend the opportunities for the conversations to occur. For example, someone looking for a reliable remodeling contractor would traditionally ask neighbors and friends for a recommendation. Now with the Web, someone will go online and search for local contractors, picking the one of the contractors with the best customer reviews at Yahoo Local, Google Maps, or another reviews website. Web customer reviews have augmented, but not replaced, the neighbors-talking-to-neighbors word of mouth marketing that businesses have relied on for many years.

As a business owner, you can bootstrap your word-of-mouth marketing by using tools on the Web. Stay tuned in coming months. We'll be talking about some of the business situations we've run into and suggest ways of using Web Word-of-Mouth methods to grow your business. If you have questions, suggestions, or comments, please contact us.

Web Reputation Tip -- Is there a difference between Reputation Management and managing your reputation?

2008-12-03T10:53:00.000-06:00

One of the catch phrases of the new world of social media is "reputation management". To many people, that means using blogs, videos, friendly reviews, and other buzz to create a positive reputation for your business on the Web. To some it also means that a good Web reputation can be manufactured through the skillful use of these Web 2.0 tools. Rust Reviews styles itself as a Web reputation management consulting company; however, we intend another meaning for the phrase.

When we talk about reputation management, we're thinking of ways to use your reputation to grow your business. So it is about using the various forms of social media to engage with your community and your customers. But it is also about taking back what you learn in these exchanges to improve your business and to adapt your business to better meet the needs of your customers. So it's a two-way exchange. You're reaching out to your customers in new ways, and you're also letting them have a voice in how you manage your business. You are using the new social media to listen to and learn from your customers.

We feel that the smart businesses will foster this environment of information sharing in order to adapt more quickly to the market place and to use word-of-mouth marketing in a new, more powerful way. This version of "reputation management" includes not only your marketing function, but also your operations, customer service, quality assurance, and so on. It is truly a management vision directed at the whole company. The businesses that will grow during the current tough economy are the ones that adapt most quickly to the new, two-way exchange version of reputation management.

Web Reputation Tip -- Is the Better Business Bureau Relevant in a Web 2.0 World?

2008-12-03T09:38:00.000-06:00

The continuing relevance of the Better Business Bureau is an issue that usually sparks a lot of controversy. Supporters argue that the Web incarnation of the BBB provides searchable, current information on many businesses, and that the BBB still serves as a resource for finding trustworthy, reliable businesses. Detractors say that the BBB model is no longer relevant -- that reviews and other reputation information available on the Web through search engines are more detailed, useful, and timely than anything provided by the BBB.

There is probably some truth on both sides. There isn't much reputation information available from the BBB online, just a description of the business and principals, the number of complaints processed and the number resolved. You're not told what the facts of each complaint were, and you don't know how the issues were resolved. My personal experiences with some BBB-approved businesses were less than satisfactory. These businesses were not outright crooks, but customer service never seemed to be high on their priority lists. Consumers looking for information about a business will often find much more and better reputation information, including the specifics of complaints, on the Web at various review sites like Angie's List, Trip Advisor, Insiderpages, Rust Reviews, Yahoo Local, and Yelp.

The one area where the BBB still excels is in the resolution of consumer complaints. A consumer can take a complaint to the BBB, whether the offending business is a BBB member or not. Again from personal experience, the one time I complained to the BBB, I got swift action from the company and a quick and fair resolution to my complaint. This is after I had tried to work unsuccessfully with the company's customer service department.

Since the BBB doesn't make any money from handling customer complaints, the organization will have to adapt its business model to better compete with the many forms of social media providing reputation information to consumers. Since surveys have shown that most consumers find peer reviews more credible than ratings from organizations, the BBB has its work cut out for it.

McAfee Secure Customer Support?

2008-12-03T09:12:00.000-06:00

Over the last month, I've tried several times to give notice of my intent to close my PCI monitoring account with McAfeeSecure.com (formerly HackerSafe.com). I've sent several emails from my account dashboard -- one to email support and the other to my account manager -- and no replies have been forthcoming. I've also tried calling and have left voicemail messages three times with no call backs. When I did reach someone in customer support they told me that the person listed as my account manager on my dashboard no longer worked for the company. My last invoice had a direct phone number and extension for Accounting, but that extension no longer works.

I have used HackerSafe.com customer support several times over the years with good results. It seems likely that the McAfee takeover of HackerSafe a year ago caused some personnel reductions and/or organizational shifts degrading customer service. The whole experience reminds me of my attempts to close a Cingular phone account several years ago.

Just a postscript here. I finally got an email from Shannon Silva, a McAfee Customer Support Representative apologizing for the delay in responding and assuring me that my account would be closed and my card not charged. A week later I got an email from Petra Johnson at McAfee telling me that they had tried to charge my card and it had been refused by my card issuer. Apparently McAfee Customer Support does not communicate with the McAfee Accounting Department.

Another postscript. I tried to respond to an email from Petra Johnson, the McAfee Manager of Account Services. She'd sent me an email when McAfee coudn't charge my card, and had included a phone number and extension in her email. I tried to call her back, but the McAfee Secure voice mail had no selection for dialing an extension. There was a selection for "immediate assistance" so I picked that and was immediately disconnected. I guess that passes for immediate assistance in "McAfee land". I dialed again and was able to use the directory to find Ms. Johnson, but alas, I had to leave a voice mail message again.

US Airways Website Annoys Frequent Fliers

2008-11-26T12:11:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I tried to arrange travel with my US Airways Dividend Miles and came away from the experience annoyed and frustrated. It started with a recent email I'd received, which provided my account information. There were links on the left side of the email, including one called, "Use Miles". I decided to use my miles to fly to Seattle for a long weekend so I clicked the link and was taken to "Booking Information", and clicked the "Book Award Travel" link. I started through the process of searching for flights, selecting flights, selecting seats, providing my Dividend Miles number, providing my credit card and billing information for the fees, and finally clicked the Purchase button. I then got an error message telling me that portions of the US Airways website were down and asking me to try again in a few minutes. So a few minutes later, I went through the whole process again, starting from the email link. Again, I got the error message. The whole process had taken about 20 minutes and I was getting frustrated so I called the US Airways Web support number for help.

The voice and the din in the background told me that I was in contact with call center in India. I explained the problem and the error messages to the representative and he asked for my Dividend Miles number. What he told me left me shaking my head.

He said the reason that I had been unsuccessful was that I had never logged in to my Dividend Miles account. This surprised me because through the entire booking process, I had never been presented with a screen asking me to do that. Furthermore, the error message I received told me that a website malfunction was to blame -- not a failure to log in. So I was a little angry with his explanation. I got a little more angry when I tried to explain the problem with the website process to the representative and all I got back was, "it's a security measure and you need to log in".

When you click to Amazon and many other companies from a promotional email, you are asked for your account information before you get into the checkout process. That's the way it's supposed to work. In a Web 2.0 world, a company attuned to its customers also listens when those customers have problems with the company website -- US Airways has apparently not trained its representatives to take constructive feedback and do something with it. To those who say that I should have known to log in, I say that a well designed website should make any purchase process intuitive and effortless and this was not. There was also apparently no feedback loop from customer service to management to report problems. I hope that somehow the word gets back to the Web design and call center management folks at US Airways and that these problems are addressed.

Web Reputation Tip -- Great Customer Service in a Online/Brick & Mortar Small Business

2008-11-26T10:36:00.000-06:00

One of the things that's often so special about a local small business is the great customer service you get. You're dealing with the owners of the business, and they make it clear that they stand behind their products and services. That same feeling is often lost in businesses that sell over the Web. Customer service is a call center, and you certainly never have the feeling that you're dealing with the business managers (let alone the owners).

I recently dealt with a small business that's managed to retain that level of owner involvement, even over the Web. I was bucked off my horse a few months ago and while recovering, I saw an ad in Western Horseman magazine for nightlatch straps from Platte Valley Saddle Shop in Kearney, Nebraska. A nightlatch is a strap that fits around the pommel of the saddle to provide a handhold in case of emergencies -- like the emergency that I faced when my horse started to buck. This Platte Valley Saddle Shop product looked like a high-quality item, so I visited their website and ordered one. This is a small-town saddle shop that's been building saddles since 1942, but the business also had a functional and attractive website with pictures and descriptive information about their products. It was easy to order the nightlatches (I got two) and following the order, I started getting regular emails from the owners, Lyle and Linda Henderson, about the status of my order including the shipping information. My package arrived quickly and I was very impressed by the quality of the items I received.

So if you own a small business and you take pride in your customer service, you should look for ways to carry that "caring about the customer" feeling over to your Web operation. Platte Valley Saddle Shop has done that very successfully, and if I'm ever in Kearney, Nebraska, I'm going to stop by and visit the Hendersons.

Yellow Pages Moving to Extinction

2008-11-24T14:00:00.000-06:00

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story titled, "Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Publishers" forecasting substantial declines for Yellow Pages print and online ad spending. It's not surprising given the industry's general failure to adapt from its print business model to the Web.

The Web provides people with an easy way to select a business from a search engine listing and then research that business with customer reviews -- whether a contractor, a lawyer, a vet, a doctor, or anything else. YellowPages.com provides some information about listed businesses, but it does not provide good reputation (word-of-mouth) information. The Yellow Pages online advertising model is to list every business that will buy an ad -- not just the best businesses. Since bad reviews would discourage businesses from continuing to list, the Yellow Pages doesn't do much, if anything, to encourage reviews of listed businesses. When reviews are available, they are not done well. For example, I just checked reviews for Allied Van Lines in Charlottesville, VA, on YellowPages.com and saw reviews there for various Allied agents across the Country, not just the one in Charlottesville.

When I search online for a business, I jump immediately to the listings that promise reviews and I start reading them. Most Web users do the same thing. With Web-enabled phones, more people are searching for, researching, identifying, and calling selected businesses on one device within just a few minutes of starting the process. YellowPages.com doesn't provide users with the information they need, so other sites like Citysearch, Yahoo Local, and Google Maps fill the void and do it well.

Of course there are other problems with the Yellow Pages like an unwieldy business classification system, a tendency to contain dated information, and clunky user interfaces online. If you're a small business owner with a limited marketing budget, you may want to consider using only the free print and online Yellow Pages listing, building a decent website, and encouraging your customers to leave reviews at the many websites designed for that purpose.

Word-of-Mouth Advertising is More Relevant Than Ever

2008-11-24T12:48:00.000-06:00

A recent article from eMarketer discussed the modes of advertising that are most relevant to college students. Sixty-four percent of students surveyed said that word-of-mouth advertising is most useful, beating product samples (60%), TV ads (55%), and online ads (18%) for the highest ranking in the survey. Certainly word-of-mouth advertising has expanded along with the use of the Web, but it still works the same way it did a hundred years ago. People rely on the recommendations of other people they trust when deciding whether to purchase a product or service. Now of course, that trust might be established by reading a detailed review online instead of depending on a friend.

As a business owner, you are passing on a tremendous opportunity if you fail to take advantage of the strong and growing importance and reach of word-of-mouth advertising for your business. Try something new! Ask a couple of your regular customers to give you a recommendation on the Web, perhaps on Yahoo!, Angie's List, Citysearch, or Google. It's not hard, it won't cost them anything, and if they've been impressed with your business in the past, they will be glad to help you. If you're not already doing so, start asking your new customers how they heard of your business. I'm sure you'll find that within a month or so of your recommendations appearing online, you'll see more customers coming to you from the Web than ever before. An added benefit is that these customers will come to you with an expectation of being satisfied and a level of trust already established. It's a great way to start a relationship with a new customer.

Web Reputation Tip -- Valuing Your Business Goodwill

2008-11-21T14:40:00.000-06:00

Whenever a business is sold, there is an attempt to measure the goodwill associated with the business and the sales price will account for the transfer of business goodwill to the new owner. A business with a great community and customer reputation is worth much more than a business with a poor reputation. As a business owner, whether you plan to sell soon or not, you should be building goodwill as a consequence of your normal operations.

The challenge has always been -- how can you measure and value goodwill. It has been an exercise in speculation to assess the goodwill associated with a business; however, the Web now provides businesses with a way to remove some of the uncertainty from the process.

Every business that's been in operation for any time at all is listed on multiple websites and many of them provide customers with the ability to provide reviews and recommendations. As a business owner, I can foster the growth of a goodwill measure for my business by encouraging my customers to leave recommendations for me on these websites. The more successful I am in getting my customers to leave great recommendations, the easier it will be for me to make the case for a large goodwill valuation during sales negotiations. Favorable reviews and recommendations, gathered over a period of years provide compelling evidence of substantial goodwill in the community. Whenever you decide to sell your business, that long-term effort to document goodwill through customer feedback will pay off at the bank.

Your Reputation and Word of Mouth

2008-09-01T13:34:00.000-05:00

In his book, Guerrilla Marketing for Free, marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson discusses the need to guard your small business reputation. Quoting him:

"It's darned tough to build a good reputation, but pretty easy to destroy it. You can spend years gaining it, but moments losing it. If one person has a bad experience with your business, count on twenty-two more people hearing about that bad experience within a month. If that's not bad enough, assume that 13 percent of those people will spread the bad word to forty others. ... People just love to spread bad word of mouth."

Levinson goes on to say that a small business builds it reputation by doing the right thing over a long period of time. That is traditional word of mouth marketing. The Internet can energize "word of mouth" by getting the word out about how you take care of your customers. However, if you’re not monitoring your reputation online, the Internet can also hurt you by transmitting any bad experiences to more people, faster than ever before.

So what should you do? You should work hard to build a great reputation with your customers and then use the Internet to let your customers tell their friends how they've been treated at your business. If a customer does have a bad experience at your business, as hard as it may be to believe, you want them to complain on the Internet rather than complain offline to their friends. If a complaint is made online, you can do something about it. You can respond to the customer to try to make things right, and you can respond to the complaint to tell other prospective customers all you did to try to correct the situation. If you want your business to grow, you should devote some time, on a regular basis, to monitoring and building your word of mouth marketing on the Web.

Time Management & Word of Mouth Marketing

2008-08-30T14:29:00.000-05:00

What kind of priority would you place on your business reputation? I would imagine that it would be pretty high for most business owners -- certainly more important than checking the email, going through the daily mail, reading the news on the Web, or having lunch with a friend. Yet if you ask most small business owners, how much time they allocate to assessing or marketing their reputations, they would have a hard time telling you. They focus on protecting their business reputation when addressing the issues presented by a dissatisfied customer and they may try to promote their reputation by donating time or money to community causes, but the great majority of small business owners do not set aside time to build their business reputations or to market their reputations to customers.

If your business reputation is so important, why is it treated as an afterthought? In his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey talks about time management in terms of four quadrants of tasks and priorities. Quadrant 1 is urgent and important, Quadrant 2 is not urgent and important, Quadrant 3 is urgent but not important, and Quadrant 4 is not urgent and not important. Working to build and market your reputation is most certainly a Quadrant 2 task along with building relationships, long-range planning, preventative maintenance, and preparation. Covey calls Quadrant 2 the "heart of effective personal management." Why don't most small business owners devote more time to this Quadrant?

Covey says that we are often drawn into spending too much time on Quadrant 1 tasks that drain the energy out of us and that we often retreat to Quadrants 3 and 4 to take unimportant phone calls, answer unimportant email, or become involved in trivia. However, Covey says that effective people stay out of these Quadrants.

To really grow your business, you need to make a commitment to allocate more time to Quadrant 2, including building and marketing your business reputation. By setting aside time every week to get quality feedback from your customers, to act on that feedback, and to promote your reputation, you will see your business take off.

Competing Against Big Box Retailers with Word of Mouth

2008-08-28T12:45:00.000-05:00

I recently read an interesting book which describes the impacts that big box retailers have had on communities and associated independent retail businesses. The book is Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses written by Stacy Mitchell. The book details how big box retailers have used their lobbying power to win preferential treatment and tax breaks from local and state governments and the federal government and how these retailers have won price concessions from suppliers that are not available to the independents.

The book also outlines how some independents have successfully competed against the big-box stores by offering higher quality goods, a more diverse selection of products and services, and providing better customer service. The successful independents don't try to compete on price alone -- they know they have to provide something extra to satisfy customers.

A friend of mine bought a kayak and roof rack at a great store called Blue Ridge Mountain Sports in Central Virginia. The Dicks Sporting Goods down the road would have been happy to sell her the same equipment, but the Blue Ridge Mountain Sports staff actually took the kayak and rack out to her car in the parking lot and showed her how to install the rack and secure the kayak. That kind of customer service is rarely seen at a big-box retailer, and it will keep new customers heading for Blue Ridge Mountain Sports. The challenge for Blue Ridge Mountain Sports is getting the word out about their exceptional customer service.

If you're an independent business, you may try to feature testimonials from selected customers in your advertising, but that tactic is not especially persuasive because the public knows you've filtered these recommendations. The best and most effective way to get the word out about your outstanding customer service, your high-quality merchandise, and your extensive selection is to get your customers talking about it online. You've already trained your sales staff to be expert and attentive -- you should also train staff members to ask their customers to go online and recommend your business. Prospective customers will see online evidence of your business reputation and you'll see more of them in your store.

Reviews Create Customer Loyalty

2008-08-27T20:39:00.000-05:00

Benjamin Franklin once said, "To gain a friend, let him do you a favor". In his bestseller, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, Marshall Goldsmith quotes Benjamin Franklin to make the point that if you put yourself (or your business) in someone else's hands, that person will often assist you better than if you retain control yourself.

That saying rings so true when it comes to asking for recommendations from your customers. Many business owners are afraid to ask for feedback. They're reluctant to burden their customers with the request and they're uncertain that the feedback will be positive. So these business owners rely on traditional forms of marketing on traditional media and the Web. If lightning strikes and a customer does go online to provide a review, they're usually grateful, but they do nothing to encourage more reviews.

Why should you ask your customers to provide you with recommendations? There are two very good reasons. First, as Ben said, you will actually gain a more loyal customer by asking your customer to do this for you. Your customer knows that you are placing a part of your business reputation in his or her hands, and they will take that responsibility seriously and repay the trust that you've bestowed on them. You are more likely to get reviews online and they're more likely to be good ones when you ask your customers to do you the favor of providing online feedback. Second, while you are ceding some control over your online reputation to that customer, you're also asserting control too. You are asking the folks who actually know your business best to provide you with recommendations. These are most likely your best customers already, and by showing them that you have confidence in their judgment, they will become even better customers and advocates for your business.

So don't trust some third party to send out surveys on your behalf. Ask your customers for feedback yourself or train your employees to ask. You'll build loyalty and trust in your customers and your online reputation will grow as a result.

Web Reputation Tip -- Apologize to Build Customer Loyalty

2008-08-27T13:17:00.000-05:00

In his bestseller, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, Marshall Goldsmith talks about the difficulty we all have in saying we're sorry. He points out that we often find it painful to admit being wrong and perhaps that by apologizing, we're ceding power to another person.

Certainly, this is an uncomfortable situation that we all try to avoid. Often we are emotional and defensive when someone says something unfair or unkind about us or our business. However, we need to stop and take a look at the situation from the customer's perspective. Is our customer being unreasonable in complaining? If another reasonable person might also complain in the customer's situation, then we need to apologize.

Mr. Goldsmith says that "apologizing is one of the most powerful and resonant gestures in the human arsenal -- almost as powerful as a declaration of love." An apology conveys the feeling that you care about the other person and that you're sorry about it. The best thing about an apology to your customer is that it moves your relationship past the cause and into a new, better phase.

Most customers find it very difficult to resist a sincere apology, and the fact that you've made the effort will usually more than repair any damage in your relationship. Instead of complaining about your business to friends, your customer will be telling friends of your gesture and a problem solved. What do you think will be better for your business?

If you need ideas for responding positively to customer feedback and bad reviews, please contact us.

Your Online Business Reputation

2008-08-27T12:55:00.000-05:00

There was a recent article at www.BusinessWeek.com, written by Ricky McRoskey, titled, "Where Customers Go to Praise (or Bash) You." The article cites a 2007 study that found that 24% of Internet users look at online reviews before making offline service purchases. The study also found that online review websites are attracting visitors at four times the rate at which overall Internet use is growing.

Given that your customers are using the Internet to find evidence of your reputation, what should you do? The article suggests asking your customers how they found your business so that you can learn where you've been reviewed and what the reviews are saying about you. That's certainly a good idea to gather evidence of your online reputation and to assess the effectiveness of all of your marketing efforts.

However, what happens if someone has posted a negative review about you? Hopefully someone will tell you about it, but you should not depend on that happening. A much better approach for your business is to use the common search engines like Google and Yahoo! on a regular basis to search for references to your business name, your name, and your website address. You'll find out very quickly when someone mentions you on the Web. If you've been praised, you can make use of it in your other marketing. If you've received negative feedback, you can do something to respond.

The one thing you shouldn't do is "nothing" because ignoring the trend won't make it go away. Make your reputation work for your business by responding to negative, as well as positive, feedback from your customers.

Your Business Reputation is Moving Online -- So Use Your Web Reputation to Grow Your Business

2008-07-31T15:51:00.000-05:00

An April 28, 2008 article at www.emarketer.com discussed some recent research into how consumers are using social media to spread the word about their customer care experience. In a survey, more than 70% of US Internet users said they used social media at least sometimes when considering a purchase. More than 75% of the respondents said they chose companies and brands based on customer care information that had been shared online. The survey was commissioned by Nuance Communications and conducted by the Society for New Communications Research.

Although many of the survey's respondents used social media, they didn't always use social networks to find the information. Instead, they used search engines, blogs, ratings websites, and discussion forums and rated these as more useful than social networks to find the desired information.

In fact, search engines and online rating systems were used most often to find customer care information by respondents. They said they use customer reviews at the end of the search process to narrow their list of choices.

Jeffry Grau, Senior Analyst at eMarketer said there is a strong consumer demand for the opinions of others, which can help merchants that use online reviews.

This study just confirms the increasing importance of online reviews and the need for businesses to be proactive in collecting online recommendations from customers. Your potential customers are looking online for evidence of your business reputation -- do your best to ensure that this information is out there for them in a form that's easy to find and easy to work with.

Word of Mouth is Moving Online

2008-07-09T14:09:00.000-05:00

Whether you ask your customers for reviews or not, odds are that your business had already been reviewed on the Web or it soon will be reviewed. You may not ask for the review, and the reviewer might not be a regular customer or even a customer at all. You may not even be aware of the fact that someone posted a review for your business until a friend or another customer tells you about it. Don't be surprised -- make it a regular, frequent practice to check your name and your business name on the Web on several major search engines. This ability to check your reputation using search engines is one of the advantages of online word of mouth.

You know that the best strategy for small businesses is to encourage customer feedback. However, even if you are personally involved with every customer, you don't really know how they perceive your business until you ask them. Comment cards and yearly surveys don't ever get much of a response and they are not focused on what the customer feels is most important. The Web is encouraging customer feedback in a new way. It doesn't come directly back to you on a survey or comment card, but the information in these customer comments is just as valuable to the growth of your business.

You can take more control of community word of mouth by asking your customers to post recommendations on the Web. If they comply, you'll get timely feedback from a broader cross-section of your customers. If a customer refuses your request to provide you with a recommendation, you've learned something new too, and you can talk to the customer to resolve the issues that stand in the way of a recommendation.

This online customer feedback information is gold for you. You can grow your business by doing more of what the customers tell you they like and try to eliminate the things about your business that they dislike. It's a simple formula for success, but it works.