Extreme WOM!

The Great British railway, our setting for today’s little musing. Picture the scene - a standard carriage, somewhere between London Kings Cross and Peterborough, it’s fairly busy. A man, let’s call him Derek, is sat with his wife. Let’s call her ‘Derek’s wife’. They seem content with their copy of The Daily Telegraph and ham sandwiches. That is, of course, until the drinks (and snacks, don’t forget the snacks) trolley comes along.

“Could I have a coffee and a…”
“I’ll come to you later” shoots back the keeper of the trolley before trundling on to the next carriage.

“Did you see that?” exclaims Derek, to nobody in particular. “What sort of service do you call that!”

He’s livid. Well, riled at least. He is disappointed by the perceived lack of service he has been given, and while most members of the carriage are aware that it is standard practice for said trolley to trundle up to the end of the train before working its way back down, Derek doesn’t care. Irrelevant of train protocol, Derek has been slighted and he’s not going to stand for it.

So, Derek sounds off, Derek’s wife tuts, and a couple of previously uninvolved passengers offer up their views on the state of public transport.

“I know, they just don’t care anymore. They put up the prices, they’re never on time and to be honest, I’m thinking of just flying from now on” pipes up a gentleman with oversized headphones.

“Yow know they don’t even offer a trolley service on some trains” claims a woman with unfeasibly curly hair.

Suddenly, from one small flippant remark, we have four different passengers discussing the lack of quality they feel they receive on their journey. And will it stop here? Depending on how long the conversation goes on for, it could well stick long in the memory.

Imagine that our man in the headphones is off to a business meeting. Of course, before the hard numbers are crunched, there’ll be some small talk. “Was your journey OK?” he’ll be asked. He’ll say it was fine (this is small talk after all) but given a moment, he might elaborate and tell tales of the screaming harpy who wouldn’t let another passenger have a cup of coffee and literally hit him when he dared to complain. Everyone at the meeting will agree that train travel isn’t what it once was, and will relay the horrendously barbaric beating of a gentleman on a train by a member of staff to their families and friends, who will no doubt post online about the death of several passangers at the hands of a crazed trolley attendant.

Ok, so maybe not quite - but I think the point remains, seemingly insignificant moments of service - or lack of service - can influence the conversations your customers are having about you. And the same stands for quality of product, or the way your customer service representative says hello, or the cleanliness of your shop floor. It isn’t just the big things people talk about, it’s the things that pique their emotion.

Extreme WOM: Sometimes it’s the little things that rile folk the most.

Brought into the world on Sunday, September 6th, 2009 and filed under Uncategorized.