New research shows how quickly word of mouth can spread from unhappy retail customers.
* Almost half of shoppers surveyed say they avoid a particular store because of someone else's negative experience.
* 31% of customers surveyed tell one or more friends about a problem they experienced with a store. But on average, shoppers tell four people about their bad shopping experience.
* Negative word of mouth influences future patronage up to five times more than the person who experienced the problem first-hand due to the Telephone Game Effect, meaning that the original problem description is continually embellished as it passes from person to person.
The study comes from the Verde Group and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The authors surveyed 1,200 people in the four weeks before Christmas, the time of year when some retailers are finally turning a profit.
While the study focused on American retail customers, it seems safe to assume the findings...
http://getgame.biz/Articles/Wharton_study_2005_negWOM.doc
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- Jeffrey Summers
- I am the expert you call when you need to learn how to increase top line sales, lower your operating costs, increase your profit margin, hire and train better managers and staff, evolve your operation into more and better ways of doing business, buy or sell a restaurant, improve your service, engineer (or re-engineer!) your menu, market your business better and less expensively, keep yourself from going nuts because you have no life anymore, open more and better restaurants, don't want to have to give up your first born child to pay a consultant and have more fun! My mission is to enhance the quality of life for my clients by providing the best products and services to help them achieve their personal and professional goals. I take great pride in my clients, my company, my commitment to service and the products I sell. I am a recognized expert in the hospitality industry with over 24 years of success at planning and executing strategies for delivering dramatic results, a former "GM of the Year" for 2 major, full-service, franchises, an Award winning Multi-Unit Executive with 2 of the largest restaurant chains in the U.S., published author, husband and father of two.