From the Archives: Sought WOM Packs More Punch Than Unsought
A recommendation that is sought out by a recipient has more impact on service adoption than one that is unsolicited, according to a December 2003 article by Robert East and Caroline Hancock of the Kingston Business School, Kathy Hammond of the London Business School, and John Scriven of South Bank University. The article, titled "The Relative Frequency and Impact of Sought and Unsought Recommendations," was written to determine if word of mouth efforts should be focused on encouraging prospective customers to seek advice or on getting existing customers to dole out advice.
According to the team's research, the average number of recommendations needed in order to acquire one customer is 49, and a weighted average showed that sought WOM has twice the effect of unsought WOM -- though, admittedly, with much variability between categories -- and indicated that an average of 50% of recommendations are sought. "Recommendation" was given as the reason for recruitment twice as often as "advertising" and twice as often as "personal search," and a rough calculation found that a single recommendation is worth the same as 600 ad exposures. The research team concluded that encouraging prospective customers to seek advice would have a profound effect on the propensity of word of mouth activities.
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