Another Social Networking Landmine: 'Kind' Reviews

| Contact Center/CRM Views and Analysis

Another Social Networking Landmine: 'Kind' Reviews

My black journalist's heart loves contrarian stuff. And what is darker and more contrarian than this quite correct observation/report from Christopher Null's The Working Guy blog 'Why user reviews are worthless'.

This is one more IED in the social networking field that could blow customer service/marketing/ strategies up in enterprises' faces. It joins firms using social networking (including reviews) to plump their products and diss their competitors.

Mr. Null points out that consumer ratings on websites are next to useless (which doesn't help companies who rely on them to help gauge customer satisfaction), because people are kinder when they put their words to the world. He cited work by the Wall Street Journal that found the average rating for anything online, as judged by the teeming masses, is 4.3 stars out of 5. The goes contrary to the common viewpoint for the web being a cesspit of anonymous anger and hate.

"Why is everyone so effusive about, well, everything?, " he writes. " Chalk it up to human nature, says one marketing research firm, which debunks the myth that people are more likely to offer a negative opinion than a positive one. (The old rule of thumb was that you get 10 times the hate from an angry customer than you get in love from a happy one.) In fact, according to Keller Fay Group's research, 65 percent of word-of-mouth is positive and only 8 percent is negative, quite the opposite of the conventional wisdom.

"Why? As I see it, people have been taught since birth to be nice. You know the rule: If you don't have something good to say, don't say anything at all. It often takes years of toiling as a professional critic before you can really dig your teeth into something."

The same remarks go for social networks. Which are no different than in-person networking, and get togethers. After all, who wants to say something negative in front of others? You step outside for that for those wonderful, secluded, index-fingers-in-the-armpits/toes-just-barely-touching-the- ground kind of chit-chats.

Does this mean disregarding consumer reviews and social networks as means to get readings from customers? No. But you have to apply a modification of the 'bad-news-travels-10X the speed of good' theorem in that for every positive comment review 3X have the same warm and cuddly feeling...but for every negative review assume that 10X more people want to stuff the product, solution, or service back down the proprietors' throats or worse yet make them use it.

And you have to check the validity of such comments/reviews. Figure out what common language is being used to sniff for 'rent a commentators'. I told Donna Fluss of DMG Consulting when she suggested that contact centers should be managing social networking that to do this requires serious political acumen. I hinted that the average contact center person--unless they have political experience (and there are teleservices firms that specialize in political work--hello, this is an opportunity)--are out of their depth here.

Social networking is not a field of buttercups and daisies for marketers. No more than all candidates' and town hall meetings are teacup exchanges of viewpoints. This is warfare for the wallets, folks, and these are desperate times. Competitors will be happy to steer you into an IED-laden field. You therefore, like a sharp soldier, need to know where they are. The consequences of not being so aware, and how to respond for your company could be as dark if not darker as my reporter's soul.


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