Great post, and it truly is an important topic and question. To lend further perspective on my opinion, I do believe consumers are as inclined to provide positive feedback as negative feedback, but as the barriers to providing that feedback increase, the ratio of negative to positive feedback (or recommendation) increases. This was very clear to me in the early days of developing the a consumer feedback portal after leaving P&G. We we carefully studied why consumer feedback to companies (and the ensuring "recommendations to others") tended so negative. The vast majority of consumers (24 or 25) who have a so-called "feedback moment" would fail to provide that feedback because of (1) contact barriers, (2) cyncism that no one would listen or bother to respond, (3) didn't know who to find, etc. Consequently, the only the really negative would push through the pipe, and that in turn would cascade (in a highly cathartic manner) to CGM venues like message boards. In so far as it takes time to invest into the feedback process, the emotion behind the negative tends to dominate the exercise. That said, as CGM venues have become easier and more effortless, we're seeing a growing percentage of neutral to positive commentary, especially in blogs, which are becoming highly transparent mirrors into everyday behavior. Often the "word of mouth" or "recommendation" is incidental or implied, not delibrate. If what Keller and others suggest is true, I'm even more convinced that companies and brands must be more aggressive in actively inviting -- nay, encouraging -- feedback, and lowering the barriers at all cost to that expression. If a friction-free feedback experience ups the odds of Pampers capturing an evangelist who speaks generously of the brand both offline and via high-impact CGM venues, that's a great payout. I'll think more about this.
> OK, so let's assume the following for the sake of argument: PWOM is more prevalent in
> offline venues and online CGM-related search results are frequently more negative. What
> explains this difference?
My first believes are that this aspect might be related to, let me say, something psychological. In my opinion, people are in real life conversations more focussed on the positive aspects of a given product. For example, if you experienced a bad hotel service on an, apart from that, excellent holiday, I believe that against (closely) related friends, neighbours, colleagues, etc, one is more focussed on the ‘success’ factors to receive some acknowledgements (status) rather than the negative ‘side-effects’.
On the contrary, the Internet provides you (at least) a feeling of (pseudo) anonymity. As a result, people maybe less focussed on ‘proving themselves as good decision maker’ and more are towards the helping others etc (what you mentioned in your article).
Hi Rene,
Thanks for the comment. I agree that there's a phenomenon where people want want to pass along good news that makes them come across as competent decision-makers (along the lines of "yes, I was smart enough to pick a good hotel"; this is one aspect of that "self-enhancement" motivation). Though I could also see somebody who passes along negative WOM in order to show that they have high standards and are discriminating: "Yes, I went to the [insert name of swanky hotel], but the service there was just terrible".
There is research that suggests people perform different identities online than offline but I don't know about the specific issue of whether or not people are less tied to the idea of presenting themselves as less concerned about status and competence when online. Does anyone know of research on this?
I agree with Pete that this is definitely an important discussion to be having!
Walter
Has anyone out there heard about WideCircles.com. It seems like a way better service then regular pay per click. Apparently they are using refering websites ( forums, blogs, wiki, etc. ) and have a viral word of mouth distributed approach to it which is engaging rather ther then interrupting customers. My friend told me he got over 500 visits from single post which cost him around $0.40c, within a few days. I am going to give them a try today . In case you are intrested here is it. http://widecircles.com?imt=3
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