Negative WOM a ‘big concern’ for retailers

Interesting results from a recent Wharton study on negative WOM. Here are some snippets:

"Only 6% of shoppers who experienced a problem with a retailer contacted the company, but 31% went on to tell friends, family or colleagues what happened".

"Overall, if 100 people have a bad experience, a retailer stands to lose between 32 and 36 current or potential customers."

What should be really alarming to brands is that customers are not using traditional customer service channels to air their problems. This means brands don’t even get to hear the vast majority (94% in this catchment) of customer concerns as they are being vocalised elsewhere -  mostly within social networks.

The figures strongly suggest that brands can ill afford not to know how their customers and potential customers talk about them.

Well worth a read on the Wharton site

Brought into the world on Thursday, March 9th, 2006 and filed under Uncategorized.