How can customer advocacy rock your sales?

Path-breaking sales are generated when two things are in play. Love for your brand, and trust worthiness of your product. So what are the pre-qualifying factors that lead your customers down this path? At the time of decision making, these 3 R’s play a big role on your consumer’s psyche:

1) Recommendations: Are essentially ‘transference of trust’. Merriam Webster defines it as, “the act of saying that someone or something is good, and deserves to be chosen.” So once you’ve had a positive experience you are more likely to vouch for that yourself.

With every sensory experience we encounter with a brand, it tallies up towards the overall perception of that brand, and the future likelihood of it being recommended to others.

We’ve all had a first-hand experience with recommendations at different stages of our lives:

• Whether it was in the form of an ex-boss talking to you about an exciting opportunity at his new firm
• Staying away from a restaurant because your partner had a terrible service there
• Going with your friend’s personal experience while choosing a daycare for your child

It’s this interdependency and reliability quotient that comes forth when choosing a product/ service based on the power of a recommendation!

2) Reviews: Consumer awareness is at its all time high. The findings of Local Consumer Review Survey revealed that approximately 72% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. A Siegel+Gale report shows a direct correlation between higher consumer awareness to 31% greater revenue growth for 10 most-known B2B brands. It all goes to prove that people today like to make educated choices when it comes to investing their money or their resources.

Every comparable B2B or B2C product or service goes through a lens of closer scrutiny and quality check in the form of online reviews. Consumer opinions are highly valued and play a dominant role in influencing future buyers.

As an online shopper myself, I tend to gravitate towards those products that have received a multitude of online reviews versus the ones that do not have any reviews listed. I attribute this to the power of crowdsourcing!

3) Ratings: Ratings reflect a quantifiable benchmark of what’s considered as superior quality compared to the sub par products.

Porter Novelli’s ConsumerStyles report finds that 60% of Millenials and 56% of Gen Xers are more likely to rate items they like than those they don’t like. So getting the product right is the foundation of great ratings.

In our day-to-day lives every decision we take is influenced by how everything is rated and ranked around us:

• Health regulations – Influencing our personal care and household products we use
• Consumer reports safety standards – Key decision making tool for buying your next SUV
• Movie Ratings- Dictates appropriateness of which movie to watch with your kids
• Performance evaluation at work – Determines your bonus package and promotion eligibility for the next quarter

So while we live in a consumerist society where every choice and decision is subliminally influenced by a recommendation, review or rating, its the collective power of customer advocacy that can ultimately make or break your product and its direct impact on your bottom-line!

I’d love to hear what influences your choices and decisions?

Photo by Christopher Dombres