A recent study conducted by TechValidate found that while consumers value customer references most, customer references are often incredibly difficult to get.
The study, involving 126 leading B2B marketing and sales professionals, found that the most effective content is not that written by the company or third-party critics, it actually comes from customers. In fact, 94% of the survey’s respondents rated content sourced from customers (including reviews, case studies and testimonials) as either very effective or extremely effective. This compares to 54% of respondents who believed the same could be said of content sourced from third-party analysts.
Although this is valuable information for marketers, this consumer-driven content isn’t exactly easy to get. TechValidate found that 90% of consumers of a given brand or product fall into the category of “Silent Satisfied Customers.” This means that although the customers are pleased with their overall experience, most will not participate in a named-reference activity. This could be due to legal issues, the time involved or privacy reasons.
In stark contrast, only 0.5% of the customer base fall into the category “Super Customer Advocates.” These are the special customers who will never get tired of advocating a brand. Unfortunately, they take up a very small percentage of the overall customer base and are very difficult to get.
Depending on the demographic your brand or product appeals to, it can be even more difficult to get positive review and recommendations. Recent research found that Millennials give more 1-star reviews than Generation X-ers or Boomers. Read our full report on the study here.
