7 Ways to grow positive Word of Mouth for Your Business

Businesses resort to numerous measures to promote and advertise their services and products, with aim to impress target customers. From using printed stuffs like pamphlets, posters to using TV and resorting to online resources- companies leave no stone unturned for product endorsement, as it is. While using latest and technological means to reach out to the customers is ideal, you should not leave out traditional but effective methods. One of the most useful traditional means to promote and advertise your brand products is word of mouth approach! Businesses have relied on this technique since ages and its relevance has not really diminished despite progress of technology.

Understanding importance of word of mouth for your business

Regardless of type of your business, you cannot overlook benefits of using word of mouth advertising. First of all, it does not cost you extra. Unlike TV or social media based campaigns- it does not have a price tag. When your company customers are satisfied with the products and services- they share their experiences with friends, colleagues and relatives. This way, more people get to know about your brand and products without active intervention by the company. In this digital era, word of mouth works faster than earlier. Spreading good feedback and review about a product takes a few minutes online and same is true about spreading negative views. So, it is important that the customers feel good about your brand and products. It will help generate and spread positive word of mouth.

Ways to grow positive word of mouth for your business

There are some tried and tested ways you can use to develop positive word of mouth about your company and its products:

• Improve customer service quality

The best way to impress the customer and generate positive word of mouth about your company and its products is enhancing customer service quality. This can be done in so many ways, actually. It would be good to simplify procedures for buying, replacing products and getting refunds. This will impress all types of customers for sure. Revamping the website to make things better for the customers is another measure you can adopt. You can use feature rich ticketing software to ensure the customers are benefited.

• Respect time- help customers save time

A majority of your company customers are in hurry-most of the times. They want quick answers to their queries and prompt resolution to grievances. Whether the customer is a housewife laden with chores or a corporate executive juggling work and home, everyone hates delay. So, the ideal way to create a positive impression on their mind and generate positive word of mouth is helping them save time. This can be done in several ways too- especially during the times the customers contact the support team. From using latest IVR setup that reduces waiting period over helpline and using chat bots in live chat to attend to customer queries when agents are offline- the choices are numerous. You may also set a time span to let the agents respond to customer emails.

• Offer personalized discounts and special/surprise gifts

To generate and spread positive word of mouth about the company, you have to ensure the loyal customers are satisfied. For this, you need to make those customers feel special. Offering those customers exclusive discounts from time to time can work. You may also offer them gift coupons on personal occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, for example. This can help them feel good and they can share such happenings with others.

• Keep many channels for the customers to contact your company

You have to realize the fact that not all customers would have the same mindset and preferences. They will not have penchant for same products and their preferences for interacting with your company would be different too. Some customers will like the helpline number to contact the support staffs. This is typically the case with customers who are not much technology savvy and feel uneasy using the online means. However, the younger generation customers who thrive on digital technologies prefer using live chat for query resolution or for addressing grievances. You have to keep provisions for both types of customers. Besides, you cannot overlook the needs of social media savvy customers. Options to contact your company directly from social media sites like Facebook would be preferable for these customers. Keeping multiple means to contact the company keeps the customers happy and helps generate positive word of mouth eventually.

• Use referral based offers and incentives

Not all customers who buy your brand products are going to share the experience with others- even if they are happy. You can use specific measures to encourage such customers spread positive word of mouth- online. This can be effective on both first time buyers and repeat customers. For example, you can offer such customers discounts on next purchase or special coupons with the condition that they have to share the purchase on social media profiles like Instagram and Facebook. This serves two purposes, actually. Most of the customers would not want to let the offer slip out and you can reach out to more target customers through social media platforms!

• Engage in charitable work or contribute to environment- develop positive brand image

Like several other medium and large sized companies, your brand should be involved in occasional charitable work. Work that contributes to safeguarding environment or helps out under privileged kids or destitute animals can be useful too. Through such work, your company image gets a boost and general perception about the brand is enhanced. Companies that engage in such humanitarian and charitable activities from time to time benefit by getting strong word of mouth.

• Be polite and helpful to the customers

It is important to treat the customers with politeness and offer them co-operation, if generating positive word of mouth matters to you. It is applicable both for prospective customers and returning ones. Whether the customer is making an enquiry over phone or chat or he is irate about any product- he/she should be treated in a polite and professional manner. Remember the fact even a single irate customer who does not get treated properly is enough to spread negativity about your brand online and otherwise. This can affect your brand perception adversely. If a customer is particularly unhappy- it is necessary to analyze the root of his/her problem and take corrective actions. Additionally, you can offer such customers special offers to mitigate the negative vibe.

What else you can do

Apart from deploying these strategies, you can take some additional steps to enhance positive word of mouth development. For example, monitoring the social media profiles of your company regularly is necessary. Comments and feeds in those profiles should be monitored for identifying dissent among the customers and remedial actions should be taken. To ensure the customers can save time and face less hassles, using best customer support software is recommended. From time to time, collecting feedbacks and opinions of the customers can also be useful. This way, you can identify what the customers need and execute those changes. This makes the room for growth of positive word of mouth.