Word of mouth affecting business

[black2002ls]

Word of mouth can make or break a small business in a big way. My wife is a member of a local mom's neighborhood group on facebook. They have meetings, a board, get together's etc. They share info on small businesses like you wouldn't believe. If you are in good with the mom's you have tons of business. You get on the wrong side of the mom's you may as well close shop and leave Dallas.

There is so much truth in this! When I was still doing cakes, I was not able to tap into that mom market far enough to establish regular business. When the "cake boom" happened with the cottage food law, there were people doing cakes left and right, and people buying them, no matter how horrible they looked because they were doing them for what had to be $.10 over cost of goods.

It seems like the only people that "take to the streets" to give reviews are bad ones.

To add to that, I placed a to-go order at hooters a few months back, and the guy that both took my order and helped me when I picked it up had a great attitude, and really went over and above on what I was expecting. This dude was on it, and it left an impression on me. I went to facebook, thier website, etc to give him the attaboy, and never saw any reply at all. Hopefully he got notified at the store level.

I've always had the mind set that one bad customer experience has the same effect as 20 good ones. The customers who had the good experience are only going to recommend the business/tell people about it when asked for a reference. "Hey, do you know where I can get XYZ?" Yep, go see ABC and they will take care of you! However, a customer who had a bad experience is going to tell EVERYONE they know as soon as it happens, they aren't going to wait until they are asked "Hey, do you know where I can get XYZ?"

[Cooter]

it seems to have zero effect on diesel pickup repair shops

[Tremor14]

It will destroy as stated. I know of a Diesel shop that is imploding because of word of mouth.

it seems to have zero effect on diesel pickup repair shops

[The King]

I have been leaving positive reviews online recently much more often than negatives.

[lowfast]

I never did any business with Travis, but I sold him a bunch of parts a long time ago...like before he opened GH. What happened with you?

I had a terrible experience years ago with Newstalgia Wheel, and I posted about it on the pro-touring forum. One of their guys tried to post a rebuttal which contained some outright lies on their end, and they were caught in those lies as well. Most everyone sided with me on the situation, including the forum moderators, and they eventually locked the thread...but they let it stand for others to see. I later received an email from a moderator letting me know that Newstalgia was asking them to delete the thread, and apparently even tried to force their hand a bit, unsuccessfully. David Coker called me personally about a year later, with some BS about trying to let bygones be bygones, and he too was asking me to delete that thread, b/c it was said to be hurting their business. I straight told him that they had their chance to make it right, and instead chose to fuck me....so basically fuck you!

Funny thing, I eventually got a call from some douchebag claiming to be an attorney representing them...telling me that they were getting a cease and desist order, would sue me for slander, etc, etc. Was apparently some sort of scare tactic I suppose, and I told the guy to go eat a bag of dicks (literally).

In the end, it didn't put them out of business, but it apparently damned sure hurt their business. I heard from numerous guys that were looking at their wheels, but had seen my thread, and wanted to get more info from me. I even heard from Wheel Vintiques as one of their vendors.

Your experience influenced me in a different direction for my Falcon's wheels.

[Silverback]

in a market as large as DFW, I'd say it's minimal. However in smaller cities and towns, it could break someone.

[MrSS]

I never did any business with Travis, but I sold him a bunch of parts a long time ago...like before he opened GH. What happened with you?

I had a terrible experience years ago with Newstalgia Wheel, and I posted about it on the pro-touring forum. One of their guys tried to post a rebuttal which contained some outright lies on their end, and they were caught in those lies as well. Most everyone sided with me on the situation, including the forum moderators, and they eventually locked the thread...but they let it stand for others to see. I later received an email from a moderator letting me know that Newstalgia was asking them to delete the thread, and apparently even tried to force their hand a bit, unsuccessfully. David Coker called me personally about a year later, with some BS about trying to let bygones be bygones, and he too was asking me to delete that thread, b/c it was said to be hurting their business. I straight told him that they had their chance to make it right, and instead chose to fuck me....so basically fuck you!

Funny thing, I eventually got a call from some douchebag claiming to be an attorney representing them...telling me that they were getting a cease and desist order, would sue me for slander, etc, etc. Was apparently some sort of scare tactic I suppose, and I told the guy to go eat a bag of dicks (literally).

In the end, it didn't put them out of business, but it apparently damned sure hurt their business. I heard from numerous guys that were looking at their wheels, but had seen my thread, and wanted to get more info from me. I even heard from Wheel Vintiques as one of their vendors.

Link?

[soap]

They told me about careless Chris, but I took me car to him anyway. Did a halfass job on my Xpipe. And his boy Daniel cut the main brake line by accident what a saws all. They promised they would go to a junkyard and replace the mainline they fucked up. Turns out they never did shit about it. So I will never recommend late model performance and those two guys. I would actually discourage people from going there.

[BradM]

I wonder how much bad press it takes for it to put someone out of business. Someone recently told me they were taking their car to gearheads, I told them about my bad experience with Travis and they said that he was cool when they worked with him. It got me thinking about how much word of mouth affects business, you are always going to have people hating on you for bullshit reasons. I wonder how the dowel pin stuff worked out for Truestreet in the long run.

Fuck Truestreet, Buffalo Haltom is yo daddy!

[mustang1200]

I'm not really a fan of any of the speed shops around. Their attention to detail and timeliness always seems to lack.

Word of mouth can certainly impact business.

[FunFordCobra]

USA Motorsports lollololol fuck Charlie Rberts and his little Blondie fag boy.

[diablo rojo]

I am constantly trying to keep our reputation clean. Word of mouth is better than any paid advertising. We run into glitches from time to time. But, we own them and do everything possible to make sure the client gets taken care of.

Example:
We've had a Jeep in our shop for over a week getting a lift, wheels, and tires. Nothing crazy. We've moved the Jeep in and out only each day. It came in with no check engine light and running fine. The customer came by yesterday to pick it up, we crank it, and it's got an engine light.

It's either an O2 sensor connection is loose, or the sensor is bad. Whichever, it happened on our watch and we're going to take care of him.

We can't make everyone happy though. It's typically when we're bending over backwards and pushing time limits to accommodate a client, that we have an issue.

[mardyn]

I have been leaving positive reviews online recently much more often than negatives.

I'm also quick to praise good service or pricing in my reviews and often try to include specific names of employees who provided a good experience for us...

I've really got to be pissed off to take the time to make a bad review, but I've done it on a few occasions.

Our last trip to the local Applebee's was one of those times... it sucked from top to bottom and I'll let 'em know about it. Did it do any good? Probably not, but they've been on our restaurant boycott list ever since and we have not been back.

mardyn

[snacksnack]

I ordered some tools online Thursday from craftman website. It said free shipping over 35 bucks so I bumped it up to that. Said it would be next Friday before I received it or pay for quicker shipping. Stuck with free and received it yesterday! I guess I should give them a good review.

[svauto-erotic855]

HP/UP has an intraweb that the house wives IM each other on all day long and one bad word from any of them would have a devastating impact on my business.