People often get confused when we talk about two words…Word-of-Mouth and Advocacy. It’s pretty simple to separate the two…in fact, we can do it with the choice between two words.
Proactive or Reactive
Word-of-Mouth is REACTIVE. It happens because a situation usually sparks something in someone’s mind and they want to tell someone else about it right then. Let’s say you had a great experience with a company that sells plumbing supplies, something non-glamorous. Then you happen to be in a meeting or at a party and someone brings up the subject of wanting to change out their bathroom fixtures. You immediately (reactively) jump in and say you just had an awesome experience at this company the other day and so you spread word-of-mouth about that company. All is good…
Advocacy is PROACTIVE. It happens because you are so over the top happy with someone or experience that you want to make sure everyone knows about it and don’t want to wait until someone asks you about it. Let’s say you had an awesome experience working with a contractor on doing a bathroom remodel. It went amazingly smooth and was well beyond your expectations in how you were treated and how it came together. So you decide to jump onto Facebook and tell all your friends. No one asked you, you just took it on yourself to proactively tell everyone because you felt so passionate and committed to this contractor. That is advocacy and a step beyond word-of-mouth.
As a business owner or executive, Word-of-Mouth is awesome…Advocacy is unbelievable! Which do you want to accomplish as a company. Maybe just starting with Word-of-Mouth would be a terrific goal…working your way to Advocacy. Even if you focus on Word-of-Mouth you will be way ahead of your competitors…they are most likely still stuck in the “customer satisfaction” world…which is now a commodity and undifferentiated. Good time to make a choice of how you want your customers to view your company.
