The customer’s word is king.

In today’s Web culture, nothing has more influence than word of mouth. If you want to grow your business, you need the help of your customers and fans.

Let’s see an example:

“SouthEnd Home Improvement is built on a simple principle: provide quality work while constantly striving to provide customer service and communication with our clients that is second to none.”

“SouthEnd Home Improvement renovated my first floor formal living room into my home office. The workmanship was phenomenal, the customer service was excellent and I couldn’t be happy. The office has definitely made working from home much more comfortable. Check them out and at least give them a call if you’re looking for home repairs, remodels, improvements or renovations in the Charlotte area.”

The first clip is from the SouthEnd Home Improvement website; the second is a review that one of his clients posted on his Google Places page.

They are both essentially saying the same thing, talking about the superior quality of workmanship and customer service that the company provides. However, the customer review has likely motivated many more potential customers to pick up the phone than the company site itself.

Why is this the case? After all, we don’t know this client and he has done nothing to earn our trust.

However, we trust him implicitly because he is not affiliated with the company and therefore (at least in theory) is not motivated by a sales agenda or self-interest.

It’s fair? Maybe not. But if you’re going to compete successfully in today’s consumer-driven marketplace, that’s the reality you have to live with. In this post-media age, you simply can’t speak loudly and often enough about your own products and services to push your way to the top.

The old marketing has been dethroned.

Marketing was a much simpler proposition in the days when communication flowed in one direction from companies to customers.

You could buy exposure in the print, radio and television media of your choice, and you could control the message down to the last detail. His investment could be clearly mapped out on timelines and calendars, and he had access to all sorts of reassuring data like reach, frequency, and cost per impression. Sign a contract, write a check, deliver your perfectly polished ads, and wait for the phone to ring.

Traditional advertising is still there for the taking. The problem is that your customers no longer buy it. There is simply too much information available to them from too many different channels. All the beautifully crafted ads your budget can buy can’t save you if your Google Places page is read with scathing reviews from dissatisfied customers.

Today’s market is governed by the customer.

Businesses today have inherited the burden of mistrust created by generations of brands before them, which thrived on the superficial messages and misleading claims of traditional advertising.

Today’s consumers see themselves as a group of brothers united behind the cause of holding companies accountable for providing quality products and services and delivering on their promises. It’s an “us vs. them” mentality, and you’re on the wrong side of the fight until you’re proven otherwise.

You can no longer hide the truth from your customers. A disgruntled customer 10 years ago was a minor nuisance. Customer service people could silence the complainer and wash their hands of the matter. It took a much larger blunder for a company’s malpractices to be exposed in the mainstream media.

However, one dissatisfied customer who expresses their discontent on Facebook or Twitter has the power to cost you hundreds of potential sales. If something goes wrong and you don’t do everything you can to put things right, you’re putting your brand reputation at risk.

In a consumer-driven marketplace, no brand is untouchable. No company is too big to be brought down by its client.

Don’t kill the dragon, make it your friend.

Word-of-mouth marketing is a scary proposition for most businesses because it doesn’t fit neatly with the metrics and regulations that drive the corporate world.

It is a lot like lightning in that there is no way to predict when and where it might strike. As such, it is nearly impossible to record and quantify. However, when it lands, there’s no denying the power of its impact.

So how do you harness this inherently anti-corporate force and put it to work for you in the real world of business, day in and day out, at the heart of the matter?

Treat every customer like Oprah.

While word of mouth is by no means a new concept, the advent of the digital age and social media have magnified its importance by putting a megaphone in the hands of every customer.

As a result, the customer service landscape is literate with potential PR landmines because you can’t always tell who has the biggest megaphone. Wrong the wrong customer and his reputation will be ruined.

Sure, you can tell which members of your online community have the most Facebook friends, Twitter followers, or blog subscribers. But things get complicated when you meet these people in the real world. They do not have the number of subscribers tattooed on their foreheads and do not introduce themselves with their Twitter account.

Then what do you do? You must treat all customers as if they have an Oprah-like ability to exert influence.

Be careful and make sure you show each and every customer that you respect them and that their opinions matter. Maybe 99 out of 100 of them won’t talk about you anyway, but you better make sure the one doing the talking is a happy camper.

Under promise and over deliver.

When you’re in front of a prospect and have the opportunity to make a sale, it’s hard to force yourself to leave your cards on the table. You want to talk about every feature and every benefit to the most superlative degree.

However, if that’s what it takes to close the deal, you’d better be prepared to not only follow through on every claim, but also go above and beyond the call of duty.

Your sales pitch is the basic expectation of your customer. If you just do what you say, they’ll thank you for a job well done and move on.

But if you go the extra mile and do more than promised, you’ll get them talking.

Never make a sale at the cost of your reputation.

You want to hear the cash register ring as much and as often as possible. However, selling your products to a customer when you know they are not a good fit for that person’s specific needs is like playing Russian roulette.

If the product isn’t really the right solution, your customer won’t be happy and they’ll point fingers at you. They will assume that your product is mediocre or, much worse, that your company is dishonest in its claims. That sale will end up costing your business and your brand reputation dearly.

Make every impression count.

Generally speaking, your clients have short-term memories. Your relationship with them is only as good as your last meeting, and your brand reputation lives and dies in the moment of interaction.

Every phone call, every email, every visit to your store counts. That means you better make sure that every person your customers come in contact with understands the importance of each touch point.

Clients are allowed to have bad days, to be unpleasant, even irrational. Customer service people are not.

Be noticeable, literally.

Your clients are not professional spokespersons. Promoting your company is nowhere near the top of your agenda.

To get them to talk about you, you have to overcome the inertia of their natural tendency to talk about almost anything other than your company.

How can you do that? You must surprise and delight them. You have to offer them something that is really new, innovative and exciting. Your products or services should make their lives easier or better in meaningful and significant ways.

If you want your restaurant to stand out, you have to make it noteworthy. Everything from the food to the service to the atmosphere should offer something that your customers can’t get anywhere else in the city.

Reinvent the wheel if necessary. When your customers find something so good that it ignites their passion, they won’t be able to keep it.

Feed them a steady diet of good content.

Your customers don’t spend their lives talking about the products and services they use like they just stepped out of a 1950s commercial.

However, everyone loves a hot tip. Mary, who enjoys working in her garden, doesn’t call her girlfriend for a heart-to-heart about fertilizer. However, if you find a great video on the Scotts website on how to keep your lawn lush green all summer long, you better believe he’ll email a link to the other members of your garden club and retweet it. for benefit. of gardening enthusiasts who follow her.

By simply sharing the video link, Mary gave Scott her word-of-mouth endorsement as a trusted expert.

Content marketing works. Period.

Start the conversation.

You can’t control what your customers say about you. In fact, you can’t force them to say anything about you. What you can do, however, is start the conversation.

Social networks have removed the communication barriers between you and your customers. Use it to your advantage by identifying the motivations that drive your fans to action and offering them ways to carry their torch that suit their passions and personalities.

Ask for your opinion. Acknowledge their good ideas. Provide good information and inspiration that they will want to pass on to their own networks. Get creative and make it fun to be their fan so they invite others to join the party.

Nobody said it was easy.

Developing good word-of-mouth marketing around your brand is a slow, arduous climb to earning your customers’ trust and motivating them to act on your behalf.

There are no shortcuts here. If you want good word of mouth, you have to earn it the old-fashioned way through hard work and honest communication. You must deliver high-quality products and services that provide exceptional value. You must develop authentic relationships with your customers and be attentive and responsive to their needs. If something goes wrong, you need to go above and beyond to fix things. In all things, showing genuine respect for your customers is paramount.

However, all this hard work will not go unrewarded. The reward for your investment of time and resources is getting and keeping the best kind of customers: true, dedicated fans who become advocates for your brand.

Thanks to the power of social media, when your evangelists start speaking, they won’t just tell one person, they’ll broadcast it to everyone in their social circles on the Web, via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, their blogs, etc As a result, you’ll not only gain exposure to potential new customers, but you’ll have an inherent foundation of trust by association.

The ripple effect that occurs as the good word of mouth around your brand continues to spread virally from person to person will do much more to sustain and grow your business in today’s economy than any form of paid advertising that your money could buy.