Groundswell Helps You Fixing The Gap

Companies always wandering why is the customer review so important. For a seller, what I need to do is just  precisely describe my products, then left the choice to customers.

The truth is that customer reviews are as important as products descriptions. Why? Because, this two parts together complete the loop of customer purchasing. The first need, of course, is to know WHAT you are buying (description, images help), the next need is to know IF it is a good purchase and will suit your needs (reviews fill this needs). Both are essential to the shopping process.  For organizations what one need to do is providing chance for customers to do the word of mouth message transformation in many ways to express their enthusiasm toward the products. And also react, based on customers feeling, and your reaction would tell your customers you care about their opinions, this would very helpful for the future business. And in Groundswell , it calls " energizing groundswell"

From The chart in left, it is very clear to tell that how important the customers reviews is, because that is the place where business happens. Opinions of a friends or acquaintance, but it is hard to control, and not easily to acknowledge of. However, for the review and ratings of the product, it is something organizations have control and can act with.  There are a lot of ways to do so, but all in all, making your customers talking like own home. We all know that, people may act as different roles in different situation, if the company offer a warm, and free place to customers where is like a home, they would become soft and also more enthusiastic toward the products. The other side is , if the organization do not care about customers' opinion, and strictly about their opinions, the customers would arm up, and ready to fight, for a company this would be a nightmare.

This two pictures are the screenshots from L.L.Bean.
They used a lot of way to make the customer reviews useful, they use star ratings, content review,  chart, and also they give other customers to judge the usefulness of the comment. All these words, numbers make the single review page become a community. People would become more serious about their review, since other customers can judge it. For L.L Bean, this is really good, become their customer kind of self-monitoring each others.

In this video,we fell how and in what extent the groundswell can work for an organization.
Provide your customers with a community, let them talk, listen to them, act and provide feedback to them. Then the customers know that they are cared by you, not only now but also will be the same in the future. In this way the groundswell become your eternal friends.

Social Media and Car Buying

For all human beings, what is the most important products one should purchase, the answer would be a lot, but car must be the top ones.

How today's people purchase a car, are they still wandering from dealership to dealership, eating the free hotdogs, and make some long notes,then go back, fight, and then agree upon? May be not. What a 21st century car buyer do, they just stay at home, search on the internet, before they go to the dealership talking to the salesperson, waiting for the brainwash, they have already collected a lot information. From Where? Internet, From Official website? only a little part, From where?  Tell me! Okay from social media.

In a global survey of more than 8,000 prospective car buyers, 94% of the respondents said they use the Internet as a research tool.  What a person mainly do on the internet, to check the official homepage of various brand is absolutely, but the truth is that we all know advertisement is unreliable, official website is definitely a kind of advertisement; All cars be called premium , maybe we should redefine premium to be anything you day dreaming. According to a survey by DriverSide and DEALER.COM,The Rise of Loyalty Advocacy& Influence-Social Media and New Automotive Purchase CycleThirty-eight percent of new vehicle buyers will use social media to research their next vehicle purchase.Engagement on social media channels after the purchase is impressive. Approximately one out of every four buyers is using social media to commu- nicate the purchase experience. Among those who used social media in the new vehicle process, fifty-eight percent of purchasers posted a comment or status update on Facebook about their new vehicle and 24% “liked” the brand.

  Professor Julia Frechette says on her class, the evolution of communication process from oral culture to digital era, the power shifted from elite group to mass media, everyone has the accessibility to the information. With this shift, the traditional market changed also, from push market to pull market.  For the car manufactures, sell a car is no longer tell customers that the products are good, but make customers to personal realize that the products are good. To achieve this, producers have to use different ways, by using your customers as your advertisement channel. 

Why is the social Media so important for the car buying process.

Like what I said before house, car and pause, are the three most important thing, this things cost a lot of money and also it would be your side for a relatively long time, so before we buy a grand house, we may first check the location, the friendliness of the neighborhood, the comfort of the environment, then with a thrill of excitement , we finally buy it . For a spouse , before we marry each other, we fight to obtain what we want, we take care of each other to secure we can get same rewards in the future, then with some excitement, we finally marry to each other, for better for worse, in certain period, the relationship has finally be settled. All the thing is same with the car buying, people want to know as many as real result about the car they are going to buy. In this customer to customer market, people acquire true information from social networks, from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn... Before they finally transfer their money out.

This is the screen shot of Lexus's Facebook page. She has 1.429,436 likes.

This is not only a place where Lexus advertise their vehicles, but also a community of the past, current, and future customers of Lexus, people here to exchange their opinion, which may have a huge influence towards the customer's purchase behavior.
This is screen shot from Lexus Facebook page of Lexus 2013 LS, all kinds of customers share their opinion, especially the past customer, their opinion for future customers is very important, since that is real experience.

screen shot from Lexus Facebook recent posts

Social Media and the customer loyalty.

Once consumers have made a purchase decision, a powerful secondary cycle referred to as the loyalty loop develops.

 Consumers who enjoy their product and purchase experience may go on to advocate on behalf of that brand. Some may bond with it, increasing the likelihood that at the time of repurchase, they may return to that brand without considering any others, and they would like to recommend this brand to people around. So combine with good product quality, social media can enlarge your loyalty loop much more bigger.