The Power of 250 Versus 2500

Overview: When you have a sales and/or customer service problem, it is either a crisis where you and the company get hurt, or an opportunity to shine and show your class. Bottom line, word of mouth advertising can make you and it can break you. However, positive word of mouth advertising is no where near as powerful as negative word of mouth advertising. Therefore, you need to constantly be looking for ways to perform significant, positive, sales and customer service events/results, while eliminating negative situations as quickly as possible.

The first study on this phenomenon we are about to discuss was performed in the insurance industry in the late 1950’s. Later studies in the 60’s, 70’s and beyond continued to verify the original findings. Here are the facts:

1. If you perform a significant positive event for someone in a sales or customer service situation, they will directly and indirectly reach out to about an average of 250 people total, within one year, with this good news about you and your company. This is also known as the positive Word-of-Mount ripple effect. That of course is the wonderful power of positive Word-of-Mouth advertising, and it cost you nothing.

2. However, there is a dark side to this Word-of-Mouth advertising. If you perform a significant negative event for someone in a sales or customer service situation, and do not take care of it immediately, they will directly and indirectly reach out to about an average of 500 (or double) the number of people, within one year, with the bad news about you and your company.

3. However, it gets worse: These studies proved (as has my own personal consulting experience) that people will readily embellish on negative events and stories far more than on positive things. In fact, the power of 500 begins to expand about 20%, every time it is passed along. Your sins are therefore unfairly exaggerated with each passing, but you are not around to defend yourself. Because of the compounded effect, in many cases, the power of 500 ends up being about the negative effect of the power of 2500!!! Therefore, using those numbers, it would take ten Power of 250’s just break even with the one Power of 2500. That fact should get your attention big time.

4. The action plan to avoid the dark side of this negative power is simply this: Concentrate on under promising and over delivering significant, positive events every chance you get. Teach everyone in your company to be aware of negative situations that might come up, so that they can be isolated, jumped on quickly, and fixed permanently. Have those Power of 250’s building up daily with clients, in a Power of 250 bank, so that when a Power of 2500 somehow slips by you and festers for a year or so, you have such a wealth of significant positive events in your sales and customer service Word-of-Mouth messages, you will not only survive it, but thrive from it.