The First Cut is the Deepest

My car caught fire today and burned into my mind a lesson every storeowner needs to know about the most powerful advertising campaign ever created: Word of Mouth (W-O-M).

I was having yet another problem with my satellite Internet service and was being dragged through the depths of hell (see previous post: An Eternity in Hell) once again. I needed a break, an excuse to go to town, a cup of coffee and Internet access – all in that order.

So I shut down operations for the rest of the day. I drove to town, got a cup of coffee, sat with a few people and righted the wrongs of the world, and then used the free wireless Internet access to do my email routine for the day.

As I was leaving I heard something pop under my car and pulled over to see what happened. As I stepped out of the car I saw flames coming out of the left front wheel well. My power steering hose ruptured and set my car on fire. I hung up on a friend explaining, “Car’s on fire, gotta go.” Reached into the car popped the hood and grabbed my large coffee and put out the fire.

Coffee: the Swiss Army Knife of consumable beverages. Don’t drive without it.

Once the fire was out, I was able to crawl under the car and figure out what happened. So I went back into the coffee shop to get a refill while I waited for a tow truck. I explained to the girl behind the counter I needed a refill because I had to use the coffee to put out the fire. The clerk was wondering if they should charge extra for that as she refilled my cup.

But what happened next was the most interesting thing; everyone in the coffee shop began debating where I should take the car. Recommendations and horror stories about the different auto repair shops in town were coming at me from all directions.

I wish I had a tape recorder going. It would have been very good for the owners of the different auto repair shops to hear the unsolicited stories that were being told about their businesses today. In the end, I was very strongly influenced by the discussion on where I would have my car towed. I picked the shop that had the most champions, telling the most positive stories based on their experiences.

The tile of this post, “The First Cut is the Deepest” is the title of a song by Rod Stewart about how deep and wonderful or how deep and painful love can be. It is appropriate in this case, because it explains how deep the love/hate customer experience can go.

In my sales training I teach salespeople to look beyond one customer to the entire circle of influence. What you do and say to one customer will be heard and experienced by many. Many you will never hear from if for the one, the First Cut is a bad experience. This is the power of W-O-M advertising.

Word-of-mouth advertising is the most powerful form of marketing in the world today. It is something that can make or break a business. It is so powerful that Madison Avenue is trying to figure ways to duplicate or ways to control a W-O-M campaign’s power.

W-O-M is either the cheapest or most expensive form of marketing depending on how you treat your customers. Most frustrating for owners is the fact it is totally out of their direct control, or so they think. The real truth is the fact it is totally under your control because it is dependent on how good or bad you treat your customers.

No advertising campaign in the world will be able to move me the way the W-O-M campaign in the coffee shop did today. It moved me because there was a high level of authenticity in their stories. Because it happened to them the stories were told with authority, passion and emotion.

The W-O-M campaign has a dual effect. Just as it made them the shop of my choice, it has also made me a better customer for them. I have high expectations for a satisfactory outcome from my visit there because I got a number of powerful stories of personal experience told with passion.

Even though I have never been to the shop before this, I have a high level of trust in these guys, because they are trusted by people I trust and respect. I am more likely to believe what they tell me about the problems and accept without question their recommendation because of the unsolicited testimonials.

Just as the power of the positive recommendations is true, so is the power of negative recommendations as indicated by the previous post “Fade to Black.” There are a couple of auto repair shops that spend a lot of money advertising that were only briefly considered, but fell out of competition, dragged down by the weight of the negative W-O-M stories.

The W-O-M recommendations have higher credibility with me than the slickest ad because the stories were unsolicited. Instead of having a paid actor in a paid ad, saying what he is paid to say, by the guy who owns the business and has vested interest in convincing you to come to his place of business; I had before me people who went to the businesses and are sharing their experiences and the results of their decision.

I’m not saying all the positive W-O-M stories had positive outcomes. They just had positive experiences. In fact the story that impressed me most about the shop I had my car towed to was about a botched repair:

A repair that took two days instead of the forecasted four hours.

A mechanic who admitted he made a mistake and what he thought was wrong with the car wasn’t.

An offer to pay for one day of a car rental so he could fix the right thing without further inconveniencing his customer.

Here was a mechanic who gets it. He knew that giving good customer service was going to pay off many times over the cost of the car rental and it has. Seven people heard this story told with pride and passion and one of them had his car towed to the shop based on that story. I am sure that if any of the others in the coffee shop yesterday afternoon have need of auto service or repairs, this shop is going to get the first chance at their business too.