Fiona Adler is one of the founders of Word Of Mouth Online – Australia’s No 1 website for business reviews. Word Of Mouth Online (or WOMO) is where consumers review the businesses they use, and other consumers use that information to find businesses with a great word-of-mouth reputation.
WOMO has over 270,000 reviews for Australian businesses – all entered by real customers that want to share their experience with others. It’s having an enormous impact on the ways that consumers and businesses interact – giving businesses that provide great service the opportunity to get lots more customers, and exposing the dodgy operators. It’s a great resource for consumers and also for small businesses that provide good service. Fiona is passionate about transparency and loves helping small businesses succeed.
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Christo: Hey guys. Welcome back to the Basic Bananas radio show. Today we‘ll be bringing you a super cool interview that we did with Fiona Adler. Fiona is one of the founders of Word Of Mouth Online which is Australia‘s No. 1 website for business reviews. Word Of Mouth Online is also known at WOMO, is where consumers can review the businesses which they use so that other consumers can review that information to find which businesses have a great word-of-mouth reputation. WOMO has over 270,000 reviews for Australian businesses – all entered by real customers that want to share their experience with others. It‘s having an enormous impact on the ways that consumers and businesses interact. Giving businesses that provide great service the opportunity to get lots more customers and exposing the dodgy operators, of course. It‘s a great resource for consumers and also for small businesses that provide a great service. Fiona is passionate about transparency and loves helping small businesses to succeed.
Franziska: Welcome Fiona and thank you so much for being on today‘s show.
Fiona: Oh, it‘s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Christo: Hey, Fiona.
Fiona: Hi, how are you?
Christo: Very good.
Franziska: So let‘s get into it straightway. Can you tell us a little bit more about you and maybe even your personal business journey?
Fiona: Sure. I guess, coming out of school, I didn‘t really have any ideas what I wanted to do. I sort of had focused on math and science so I found myself in engineering somehow. And stomped away at that for a couple of years, really, not enjoying things. And then somewhere along the lines I discovered marketing. I think it was actually a little competition that I entered and I sort of… It was just to sort try to influence people and I sort of thought to myself, well, what kind of discipline is this? And I sort of really thought about it; marketing. So I changed courses and studied marketing. And then worked for a small engineering company doing their marketing; so I sort of combined the two a little bit. And then did a few years in strategy consulting for one of the Australian Strategy Consultant firms. And so I had a real, I guess, I would deal with all kinds of business. It‘s kind of like work experience and sort of six weeks in a project, teach 18 months here, all different industries. So that was a really good experience. But I guess I learned through that that I‘m someone that likes to actually implement things. Doing the report. What never said we‘d do is to sort of draw the analysis and the recommendations and leave a report. In reality, a lot of it was done that way. Leaving implementation up to the client and I think in a lot of ways it‘s easy to come up with what you should do and it‘s actually hard to do it. So I took a bit of a leap and I joined my husband and his partner to work in an IT services business that they had started. So that took… I think I was there for six years before we actually sold that Census Telstra. And then after that led me to starting Word of Mouth Online.
Franziska: Oh, fantastic. And so Word of Mouth Online has been going for about five or six years. Hasn‘t it?
Fiona: That‘s right. Yeah. Yeah. Probably five and half years it‘s been live and probably six and half years it‘s been in the making kind of thing. And I guess part of the experience we had with the IT company was the reason for it starting that. We found that we were a business that provided onsite IT support services and sort of very high quality. We had a trained engineer. We always struggled to communicate that value. Like the extra value that they would get from using our services as opposed to a one-man band operating out of the boot of his car. And we found that the best customers came to us through word-of-mouth. Once we had one customer, they knew what we were like. They could easily explain to sort of their colleagues and acquaintances that we were the right sort of business for them. But it was frustrating because that was not something that we could sort of control. So I guess that was one of the reasons for starting Word Of Mouth Online and from the other side, I was doing, well trying to do some renovations on my home and I could not… Yellow Pages or local papers. Looking at builders and architects and all kinds of trades and really to… I guess I just made this realization. I couldn‘t really… There wasn‘t any information there for me to make a decision on who to use. Like I really wanted recommendations from people. We‘d seen all sorts of houses doing similar sorts of projects. And that‘s when I sort of started thinking, “Hey, wouldn‘t it be great if there was a resource online where everyone could share their recommendations to businesses.”
Franziska: I love it. So maybe just for our listeners if you can just summarize in one or two sentences how WOMO works and how they can use it. Or maybe some people are already using it, hopefully.
Fiona: Yeah. Yeah. So Word of Mouth Online so it‘s essentially it‘s sort of a cross between a directory, a business directory, and a user forum. It‘s all the businesses on there are entered by customers. They enter them for the first time and describe their experience and give the business a rating. So that‘s anything from hairdressers, to dentists, to trades people, to restaurants, to accountants. Really anything that people want to review they can review. Obviously, it‘s most effective for service type businesses where you really want that recommendation to know what they‘re like before you sort of use the business. Consumers can… We have something like one and half million people using the site each month. And they can use it for finding good businesses and also checking out business they‘re not about to use just to see what businesspeople are saying about them. Hey, I‘ve just moved to a new suburb. I haven‘t got a hairdresser. I haven‘t got a dentist. I need a mechanic who‘s not going to rip me off. All those sorts of things.
Franziska: It‘s really fantastic.
Fiona: Yeah. It‘s real information from actual customers saying what they thought about that business. So it helped a lot more sort of credibility and trust for people.
Franziska: Would you say it‘s a little bit similar to Trip Advisor but just not about holidays and hotels?
Fiona: Absolutely. Yeah. It‘s just sort of for everyday businesses rather than for hotels and holidays.
Franziska: Yeah, because definitely a site that I use a lot when we go on holidays quite a lot here. So I usually do use Trip Advisor because I usually just go to a place and I don‘t have anything booked and then I go into Trip Advisor and I find something in the area and I book something based on the review. So reviews are definitely very powerful.
Fiona: Absolutely. And sometimes it‘s those little places that might not have the flashiest websites.
Franziska: Exactly.
Fiona: But they‘re the sort of gems that you really want to hear about and that‘s where something like Trip Advisor or for businesses, Word Of Mouth Online is really good.
Christo: Yeah. You see it a bit in social media, don‘t you, that‘s one of the benefits, of course of social media is people reviewing or third party people like customers speaking about the experience they‘ve had with a business and then other people seeing it. But it sounds awesome how you‘ve got it in a one place in a reliable source to go and review business. It sounds fantastic.
Fiona: Yeah, I guess the emphasis is just a bit different. Like people can Facebook or Twitter or whatever, say, I just had this great haircut here but that‘s right. At that time I see that I‘m probably not looking for a hairdresser.
Franziska: No.
Christo: Yeah, that‘s right. And it moves so fast then it disappears so by the time you want to find a hairdresser, it‘s probably old news and disappears.
Fiona: Exactly. Exactly.
Christo: So have you seen a changing consumer behavior in how consumers make decisions with the whole online thing going on and the word-of-mouth being such a powerful force?
Fiona: Yeah. Absolutely. I think today‘s consumer is much savvier and much more informed than ever before. I guess in the past, and if you go right back to when TV was coming out and these efforts were everything. They all carried a lot of weight… People believed what they saw in a newspaper or what they heard on TV, It was just gospel. But, now people question everything they hear and they‘re looking for questioning the source and what’s behind it. They know how to differentiate advertising and well, of course, the business is going to say that they‘re the best and the greatest. But they‘re actually now looking for real social proof and recommendations from either any of their friends that‘s obviously the greatest situation, but, anonymous customer reviews are fantastic as well.
Christo: Yeah, yeah. I was talking to a mate actually who owns a surf shop recently and he said it‘s amazing just as you‘ve just said, it just reminded me, he said, it‘s amazing how much customers know now. They walk into his shop and they know everything about every surfboard that they‘re going to look at and where they‘re made and the quality. Yeah, it‘s amazing.
Fiona: Yeah, I well, Nielsen has done some research that says that all purchases, whether its goods or services, start with a search on the Internet. So, I mean even for business owners that don‘t use the Internet much themselves. They need to be aware who their customers are.
Franziska: Yeah, I agree. And you know something else, because I love this whole online thing for small businesses because I worked in advertising with the big guys a couple of years ago and obviously they had huge budgets to be used for big advertising campaigns and it was much harder even seven, eight, nine years ago for smaller businesses to be seen. But do you think that with stuff like WOMO and social media it‘s much easier for a small business to play at the same level as with the big guys?
Fiona: Absolutely. I mean big businesses, you know, they use their advertising and we know about them. Like we all know what a McDonald‘s is like or big brands… We sort of directly know what they‘re like and they‘re good at communicating that. But the small businesses, they never had that power before. Whereas now, I guess they could. But it would take years and years and years to build up a reputation. But now, they can really sort of provide good service and that‘s really what small business people like to do. And sort of gets them credit for that really. Like if they provide good service they all of sudden, they‘re building this online reputation. People are reviewing them and talking about them online and helping them get the next client. So really they sort of have to use their customers and their customer service as their sort of marketing and their sales force.
Franziska: Yeah.
Christo: Yeah. It‘s awesome. Yeah. So the team expands…
Franziska: Yeah. Everyone is your sales team. And you know there are always in our Clever Bunch programs, maybe one or two people per group that are really just resisting this whole online thing and you have to push them, “Come on, let‘s do it.” Even just social media. But then, you know, once you explain that it‘s actually an opportunity, it‘s also a threat. Because some people are worried that people are going to talk bad about you but they only talk bad about you if you have bad service. You should not be in business if you‘re bad…
Fiona: And I guess some businesses are, you know, that‘s a natural concern for some businesses. They are afraid of that. That crazy customer that‘s going to go online and write something that‘s detrimental to their business. But, and really that‘s really a minimal thing that happens… I guess everyone‘s heard that sort of old quote that says, “If you have a happy customer they tell one or two people. If you have an unhappy customer they tell everyone.” Or whatever they say… But online we‘ve actually found that to be completely different. We find that only about 7% of the reviews are negative. So that‘s across the board. So maybe that was never true in the first place. Or online maybe people are more considerate. They‘re aware that their comments are more permanent. But as well, people will… I mean businesses that embrace it, they‘re almost protecting themselves in case something like that happens. If they‘ve got all this good feedback and this great reputation out there or really if they do happen to get one thing that‘s negative, it really helps.
Christo: Yeah, that‘s right.
Fiona: You don‘t think about that one little negative thing. It might have been a bit of an offense.
Franziska: Yeah, so. I love that and I actually did want to ask you about that. If somebody does get a negative review, how should they respond? What should they do?
Fiona: Yeah. The first thing is to take a deep breath. First business owners get really upset when they get a negative review. It‘s their heart and soul. It‘s not just their livelihood, it‘s really their passion and it feels sort of insulting to get a negative review and I can understand that. But really the first thing is just get back and take it in context. And then to really consider whether it‘s real or not. Because there are some reviews that end up on the site that might be from a competitor or maybe a disgruntled employee.
Franziska: Lame competitors.
Christo: Yeah. It‘s a pretty dodgy way to compete, isn‘t it?
Fiona: Ah, yeah. Yeah, it‘s not nice… But it‘s pretty rare, but if that is the case, it‘s also very easy to deal with as well. We‘ve got a lot of automatic systems in place to deal with most of it. But if a business thinks that they‘ve got a review that‘s not a real customer, they can just flag it on the site and it can be handled very easily. That‘s fine… If they have a real negative review, then obviously they need to address that. And I guess they need to really consider… Well they‘ve got this customer that he‘s unhappy with their service. And they can take it two ways. Sometimes businesses, you know, want to tell people how that customer is wrong. But, really, that‘s probably not the best way to handle it. It‘s better to sort of apologize for that customer‘s experience whether or not you think they‘ve had a good experience or not. The reality is they‘re not happy and they‘ve been disappointed. So maybe it was a communications issue or maybe it was an expectation or something like that. But really to apologize and to publicly state that what the normal situation is and how you‘d like to come back and try you again or how you‘ve done this, that and the other to sort of try and handle it. Because if they do as well. That‘s when the opportunity is to show what kind of business they really are because every business has problems from time to time. There‘s no perfect business out there and it‘s more about how they handle problems when they do occur that is a true mark for business.
Christo: Yeah. That‘s right. It gives them a great opportunity to just show their true colors.
Fiona: Absolutely. We‘ve had lots of examples where people have invited customers back for a second chance. Maybe give them a free meal or something like that or just come back and talk about things and manage to turn the situation completely around. So it‘s worthwhile doing it.
Christo: Awesome.
Fiona: Before something like this you wouldn‘t even know you had that customer that was unhappy. They‘d just walk out. A lot of times they walk out without even sort of making a complaint and then you don‘t know that they‘re not happy and they‘re never going to come back.
Franziska: Yeah, so, and I agree with that. And because often times when you pretty much spoke about that just now. Having a negative review, it obviously sucks, but, if you can turn it around then and show everyone else who‘s reading it how amazing you‘re responding to it, it‘s actually almost positive.
Fiona: Absolutely.
Franziska: Yeah, so. You don‘t want them, but if you do get them, sometimes it‘s an opportunity to…
Christo: Yeah, you don‘t want to hide it.
Fiona: Yeah. In fact we had an example where a business, she had a lot of… This was a restaurant actually, American diner restaurant, and she had a lot of really good reviews. And then she got this really scathing review and she actually… she was so upset and knew who the customer was and knew that they were unhappy but she was just so upset getting this negative review. And we sort of gave her some advice as to how to respond to it. Which she did. But she was also surprised to see that she actually started getting even more business through coming afterwards because I think that one negative… one reviews about it.
Franziska: Oh, my god.
Fiona: I don‘t think… if her other customers kind of jumped to her defense and sort of said, well, you know, if you don‘t like it you shouldn‘t come here. It was kind of the whole… Her customers were actually supporting her and standing up for her.
Franziska: And that‘s the best thing that could happen. Someone is maybe a little bit upset or a bit grumpy about it and then other customers come in and pretty much defend you.
Christo: Market it for you.
Franziska: That‘s fantastic.
Fiona: Yeah. Absolutely.
Christo: Yeah. I was going to say, do you have any examples? That is one good example. But any examples of businesses that are leveraging the customer reviews really well?
Fiona: We‘ve got… I was just speaking to my hairdresser the other day and she started on our program… We put this program from the Happy Customers Program which sort of accelerates the word-of-mouth and sort of gives a bit more presence on the web. And through that she‘s now getting 12 to 15 new clients a week.
Franziska: Wow, fantastic.
Fiona: And she‘s saying that they‘re driving from all over town. They drive 40 kilometers for a haircut. Which is just to me amazing.
Christo: Awesome.
Franziska: Wow.
Christo: Awesome.
Franziska: I know I would never do that. I really wouldn‘t actually. I really don‘t like going to the hairdresser. And then.. Three hours later?
Fiona: The hairdresser means a lot to them… But all kinds of businesses. Trades do really well once they get a few good reviews because I guess that‘s a field where they haven‘t got the best reputation. People expect it. Trades. Traders to rip you off. If people can see real reviews from customers saying that the workmanship‘s going to be good. They‘re going to turn up on time. They‘re going to not rip you off. They‘re going to charge a fair price and that‘d do extremely well from… It was an electrician that I just spoke to, I think it was the week before last, and he said he was getting 20 new customers a month from it.
Franziska: Fantastic.
Fiona: And also the interesting thing he was saying was the best type of customers. He was saying, “Look, 20 customers is great. But the best thing about this is they‘re actually really good customers because they‘re looking for quality work. Cost is not their number one consideration.” Process impacts everyone but they‘re after a really good quality good work and good service to go along with that.
Franziska: Now, it‘s obviously not very easy for a business to get those reviews. You know sometimes you have to ask customers or sometimes they just go and do it. Do you have any tips on how a small business can motivate their clients to leave a review?
Fiona: Yeah. We found that the Happy Customers Program, we give businesses tools to do that. So we actually give them flyers to hand out to their customers and buttons to put onto their website and email templates to send out to their customers. But even without them, the main thing is to talk about reviews with their customers. Some business owners are a little bit bashful about it. They sort of… Yeah, just a bit afraid to bring up the topic. But, really, most customers are very happy to do it. I mean the thing that will stop them is everyone‘s busy and tend to forget and all that sort of stuff.
Franziska: Exactly, yeah.
Fiona: If the business is providing a good service, most customers are very happy to reciprocate and sort of once they realize as well how important those reviews are to the business then it‘s very easy for a business to quickly get on a few good reviews. And then what seems to happen is once they get a few good reviews, then because they start getting more customers finding them that way, those types of customers are sort of… They know the value of good reviews and so they‘re likely to go and review. So the first few reviews is a little bit but after that it seems to take on a lot on its own.
Franziska: And also, do you have businesses… I just thought about that… Do you have businesses that maybe have a facility like a laptop or an iPad where customers can leave a review straightaway while they get the service and they‘re happy?
Christo: At their workplace.
Fiona: Yeah. Actually that is something hairdressers do a lot of. Stuck in chair while they‘re waiting for their color.
Franziska: Yeah, exactly.
Fiona: Hand out the iPad and say, “While you‘re here, would you mind just giving us a review. We‘d just love to hear your feedback.” And actually even the act of just asking for feedback. That tells customers that you actually care about what they‘re thinking and that you‘re looking to provide them customer service.
Franziska: Exactly.
Fiona: That‘s actually a good customer in itself.
Franziska: Yeah, no, I agree. I agree with that.
Christo: Awesome.
Franziska: Now you obviously come across a lot of reviews from customers. I‘d love to talk about one of my favorite topics just for a couple of minutes. Do you have any tips about customer service? What people are looking out for when it comes to customer service?
Fiona: I guess the main thing is they want to be heard. So they want to be acknowledged when they‘re there and they want their needs to be listened to and they just want to be sort of person rather than a part of the process. That comes down to very personal interactions between the people that they‘re dealing with quite often. But, you can but actually just want to help others and so it‘s just a matter of taking that extra couple of seconds really to engage that can make all the difference.
Franziska: And that‘s really quite a big one. The whole personal interaction and one… We did a study recently about what people are… How they search for their suppliers and how they stick with a supplier. And one of the things that they said is remembering my name. It‘s such a simple thing but, just the act of remembering the name when you go into a hairdresser or you go into a dry cleaner means a lot to businesses because also I guess with the whole online world and we‘re less likely to connect on a deeper level online than offline, it suddenly becomes more significant I believe when you have a personal, human interaction.
Fiona: Yeah. Absolutely. It‘s simple things. You can talk about adding on little gifts and other little practices but remembering someone‘s name carries so much more weight and just remembering how they like their coffee or what you discussed with them last time. But it‘s… it‘s the simple things that customers actually really remember at the end of the day.
Franziska: I agree.
Christo: Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
Fiona: And usually they‘re prepared a little bit more once they have services as well once they‘ve found someone else they have that connection with… the price is not the main thing.
Franziska: I agree.
Christo: Those little bits of extra customer service go a long way. So, one question we always love to ask is… Might put you on the spot. Is what‘s the weirdest or funniest thing that‘s ever happened to you in business?
Franziska: We get some really cool stories…
Christo: We get some interesting ones.
Franziska: And some funny, weird stories, too. You can go ask…
Christo: Weird, funny, shocking, absurd, scary.
Fiona: I mean we see all kinds of different reviews coming in. You can imagine people review everything and anything… I was just talking to a mechanic the other day and he… I remember talking to him six months or so earlier and he was sort of adamant that people aren‘t going to look online for mechanics. It‘s just not what they‘re doing. He said all my customers come from actual physical word-of-mouth or through driving by my store. Anyway, he did the reviews and joined our program. And now he‘s… one he gets 20 new customers a month. But, when it‘s actually working for you. But yeah, we don‘t have too many wacky people.
Franziska: Come on.
Christo: That‘s all right.
Franziska: It‘s okay.
Christo: Get those reviews, the crazy reviews maybe on the site so people can check them out.
Franziska: Yeah, exactly. So where can people go to read those crazy reviews and get engaged with you?
Christo: Find out more about you guys.
Fiona: Yes. www.womo.com.au
Christo: W-O-M-O.com.au.
Franziska: Fantastic.
Fiona: Yeah.
Christo: Very cool. Thank you so much for sharing today. This has been great.
Fiona: It‘s been a pleasure.
Franziska: Thanks, Fiona. It was a huge pleasure to have you on the show.
Fiona: Thank you.