Gallbladder

Today if I want to watch a movie the options to check its quality are varied. Same goes for food if I want to try out Chinese food in the new restaurant opened in the city or want to try out look for a good Sunday brunch, I might check out my area food guide or may ask to my friends. In other words I trust the Word of Mouth(WOM).

Word of Mouth has always been there the only difference today is that everything is on the Internet. So before I or you go to buy some digital asset/want to give car for repair/want to try food out in a restaurant we love to check in our surroundings. These checks are nothing else but asking view points from our friends, relatives, neighbors and our trusted sites.We trust their words as we believe them and this belief is nothing but a kind of trust that we have gained over a period of time. A good or bad word about a product/service from our trusted source is nothing but Word of Mouth(WOM).

WOM Yesterday                                                                             

People love to gossip and share things that they are enjoying or not. For example my colleague visited a sauna place near his vicinity and he was so impressed that Monday morning before the team meeting he was talking about how he enjoyed and got value for his money. Now listening to his words and excitement I am sure that colleagues leaving in that vicinity or in the surrounding will give a try. Even if someone is into some other location he might visit their web page to find out if they have any more outlets that are near his area. This could be termed as a good effect of Word of Mouth.

Some more examples are listed down,

Example 2: I love food and love to try out food at various places but I restrict myself at times as I don�t want to spoil my taste by having food in some bad restaurant. I was in HSBC, Pune when one of my senior was planning to give my gang a small party. He knew that I loved sea food and so he took us to Mahesh Lunch Home, Pune. I know after hearing the name of the restaurant you might be thinking that it�s a unlimited plate dining place. Sorry you are wrong it�s an awesome sea food destination. Nice ambiance, lots of options for drinks and a whole book full of various delicacies of sea food. From that day I was a fan and after that I became a regular customer following were my friends,parents, brother and his family etc.  Few days ago I was recommending the same place to one of my new friend. That�s the power of Word of Mouth/WOM.

Saying all these nice words about Word of Mouth but it too has its negative part. Word of Mouth is always not beneficial or right. At times it also falls flat intentionally or unintentionally. Word of Mouth/WOM has its side effect.

Example 3: I read movie reviews sometimes and sometimes I don�t pay attention. Simple reason that the writer of the review and I don�t think alike. He might think or interpret a situation in his own way and I may not. Recently I watched Love Sex Dhoka, Hindi movie and I was really impressed by the story telling of Dibakar Banerjee. Before LSD Dibakar has directed 2 more movies and they were critically acclaimed and were crowd pullers too. I liked him as a director from his first movie but I got mixed reviews before I went to watch. One of my friends was really irritated the way the story was told from a third person point of view and another friend was not ready to accept the reality. In the end I was glad that I didn�t buy their argument or views and went to view the movie. I was happy that I didn�t buy my friends views.

Word of Mouth leaves a sour taste when it�s used as a paid service. In other words people are paid to say bad things or do a bad publicity to spoil a brand�s name or image. Don�t you think the Wood�s Scandal falls in the same line or Internet search engine Google�s failure to lure China. Anyway I still think that Word of Mouth is a strong tool and in the recent time we can see Word of Mouth going online in forms of a Blog, FaceBook, My Space and Twitter.

Companies are changing the way they work now they value a customer more as they are witnessing how lethal can be Word Of Mouth . Like Kodak which is aggressively following Social Media as it is appreciating customer and the Word of Mouth.