Word of Mouth Recommendations

Where do you go to find a recommendation for a good Italian restaurant in a city you'll soon be visiting? Do you check with friends who have been there or do you painstakingly check out all the travel and ratings and review sites online? Those are certainly great places to check, but wouldn't it be nice to have one place to go for the best word of mouth recommendations? The recommendations would be written by bloggers from all over the world. They would write about the best recommendations for their city. It would be like asking a friend who lives in that city. They would be open to comments from consumers who may agree or disagree and of course, they could rate them.

That is the vision for the Word of Mouth Network. Hundreds of word of mouth sites that would be connected with a central directory so you only have to go to one place to find all you'll need. For example, Word of Mouth Phoenix is a place to go for word of mouth recommendations for that city. Check it out and add your comments.

The Power of Word of Mouth

I've been reading Pete Blackshaw's new book "Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000". Isn't that a clever title and an accurate statement? If I enjoy a product or service I might tell a few friends but if I get bad service or a defective product, I do tend to tell lots more and include all of the details. I guess we like to be heard. But are the companies listening? Well, according to Pete they better start listening.

In this age of instant everything, the Internet provides us with a megaphone to broadcast our opinions. And that reach goes much further nowadays with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, blogs, ratings and reviews and many more. Companies need to be monitoring the Internet for any mention of their company, their products or services and most importantly, be quick to respond. Pete includes examples of companies who were slow to respond and others who responded quickly and as a result, avoided potential disasters.

I read a blog post earlier this week on the Valley PR Blog in Phoenix. The post was entitled "The Power of Brides Online" and was written by Charlotte Risch. She had recently become engaged and quickly became consumed with wedding plans. She personally experienced the power of word of mouth, as other brides were quick to talk about their experiences with bridal shops and wedding vendors. And not all of their experiences were positive. Her advice to many of the bridal boutiques was to brush up on their word of mouth marketing skills. How right she is! Bad word of mouth spreads oh so quickly. Maybe they need to get their hands on a copy of this book.

Pete Blackshaw's book should be read by anyone who provides a service or product to the public. The book is easy to read and makes common sense. Companies need to adapt to today's consumer driven world. They cannot continue to ignore the power that consumers wield.

I highly recommend this book.

Word of Mouth Stats

The Fresh Chat blog has a great list of stats for word of mouth. Jenni Beattie posted the list entitled "The Power of Word of Mouth" on July 10th. It's a very concise list. If you ever had a doubt about the importance of word of mouth recommendations, you must read this post. Thanks for compiling a very thorough list.

Best of the Best

Finding the best of the best can be fun! I always look forward to reading the annual best of best issues of my local magazine and newspaper. But what makes something the best and who votes on it? Often what I consider the best is different from what someone else prefers. I may enjoy a romantic restaurant and you may like an exciting trendy place to eat and mingle with others. I'm always curious to know what "other people like me" consider the best.

Wouldn't it be great if there was one place to go to find the best recommendations across a wide variety of topics? Instead of wasting valuable time searching for websites that list the best, wouldn't it be great to have a resource of expert and consumer recommendations that are continually updated and voted on? It would be convenient to have rated keywords or phrases describing the positives and negatives so it would be easy to understand at a glance without having to read long narratives.

This way if I was traveling to New York City and I wanted to find the best boutique hotel that was close to Times Square, I could easily locate it from what others recommended. If I wanted to find the best dog groomer who was patient and friendly in my city, I could locate it from the recommendations of others. It would be so convenient to have one place to go to find that information without searching all over the web.

What do you think? I envision the Word of Mouth Network as such a place. The difference would be the unique patented method that makes it easy to add, locate and understand recommendations at a glance. The word of mouth name is easily recognized and remembered so if a person wanted to find word of mouth recommendations about Paris they could type in http://www.wordofmouthparis.com/ and be directed to that section of the Network.

Word of Mouth Network: One stop shopping for the best word of mouth recommendations!

Information Overload Conference

The Information Overload Research Group (IORG) hosted its inaugural conference at the Penn Club in New York City this past week. Jonathan Spira, CEO and Chief Analyst of Basex delivered the keynote address on the growing problem of information overload. Although I wasn't at the conference, Greg Petras, CEO of Involve and the Word of Mouth Network had been asked to sit on a visionary panel. He had the opportunity to present our Quick Comments patented approach. While most of the panel members addressed ways of dealing with email, Greg demonstrated how time can be saved with Quick Comments, a new approach to gather, communicate and benefit from user feedback.

I had to laugh because this is how I picture information overload. Can anyone relate?

Recommended Reading

I just received a copy of the book "Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good" by Sarah Lacy. What an excellent read. I found myself fascinated to read the stories behind many of the entrepreneurs who are taking the Web into the 21st century. So far, I've only read the prologue and the first three chapters and I can't wait to get into it further.

It has already helped me to better understand my own entrepreneurial husband. It takes a special type of personality to take risks and the intelligence to have a vision before other people actually "get it".

As I continue to make progress with this interesting book, I plan to write about what I learn.

The original vision for the Word of Mouth Network was to provide a way for consumers to exchange word of mouth recommendations. We started it in 1999 before the dot com bust. It was originally called the Recommendation Exchange or "Rex" for short.

Consumers could share their favorite restaurants, TV shows, books or hair stylist with others. We developed a new method where the reviewer selects or adds keywords or short phrases that best described the subject and then rated the relative strengths or weaknesses of those words on a one to five scale. A rating of five would be the greatest strength while a rating of one would be the greatest weakness. This rated keyword method provided a more accurate and refined search results. They could also add an optional long form comment. We were eventually awarded a patent for this new method of capturing and sharing user feedback.

We had three large beta sites at media properties that were quite popular. Unfortunately, with the dot com bust we scaled back on our pursuit. Despite the timing, we maintained the beta sites and gained much knowledge about how to motivate users to contribute content, using points as incentives for specific behaviors and as a way to manage the quality of the content.

Video Introduction to Quick Comments

This 3 minute video presentation provides an introduction to Quick Comments.

The Word of Mouth Network will provide this white label recommendation application free to members in exchange for the rights to monetize the recommendations. The rated tags method provides a more structured and simpler process for users to contribute, locate, understand and share recommendations.

Easily recognizable word of mouth domain names will be used to establish destination sites featuring top rated recommendations from members. A destination directory will list all of the "wordofmouth (niche).com" sites and will be promoted to increase visibility and name recognition.

Quick Comments can also be used in the B2B market as you will see on the video.

Quick Comments Patented Approach

The Word of Mouth Network will be comprised of a wide variety of niche focused websites. They will utilize a patented approach to capture and communicate online user feedback. It's a great way to engage consumers and increase revenue. The white label recommendation application is free in exchange for the rights to monetize the recommendations.

The patented rated tags method provides a more structured and simpler way for users to contribute, locate, understand and share recommendations. Keywords or phrases are selected or new ones are added and then rated as to the relative positives and negatives of each. A five star rating would be very positive while a one star rating would be very negative. A visual summary makes it easy to get the essence of many opinions of a subject quickly. This saves the time of having to sort through many long-form comments. It does not replace existing ratings and reviews but offers a new option. Many consumers do not like to take the time to write long reviews and so this method is appealing.

Top rated recommendations become available on one or more of the "wordofmouth (niche).com" websites related to their vertical market and link back to the contributing website for purchases and additional information. A destination directory increases visibility and name recognition for the word of mouth niche sites and will be promoted as "the source for the best word of mouth recommendations on the Web".

We now have a website to get feedback on this new patented approach to gather and understand user feedback. Please visit the site and tell us what you think.