Marketers ‘missing out' on WOM opportunity

US-- Senior marketers are missing an opportunity by failing to listen and respond to customer word-of-mouth, says the Chief Marketing Officer Council.

In a survey conducted by the CMO Council and sponsored by Satmetrix, 38% of 480 executives said their companies have no programmes in place to track or promote positive word-of-mouth among customers.

Most organisations suffer from “blind spots” in the way they handle and respond to customer issues, according to Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council.

“We are missing a major opportunity to turn customer pain into competitive gain at every touchpoint through better use of web and contact centre technologies and processes,” Neale-May said.

Only 38% of those surveyed said their companies gather insight from customer engagement situations, and only 17% said they use the opportunity to find and cultivate customer advocates.

Fifty-eight per cent said their companies do not compensate executives in line with customer loyalty measurement or satisfaction scores.

“Companies must become more sophisticated and committed to both leveraging customer experience as a key business metric and instituting company-wide processes that drive improvement,” said Laura Brooks, vice president of research at Satmetrix.

Author: Robert Bain