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December 18, 2006
Creating internal WOM
Internal word of mouth was the big topic at the WOMMA conference last week.
In session after session, and then into hallway discussions, people were talking about how to get company employees on board with word of mouth. It's a frustrating issue for company change agents when the obvious isn't so obvious to the devil's advocates.
Intuit seems to have a good handle on creating internal word of mouth. Scott Wilder manages the online community for Quickbooks; he said that to build internal buzz, use your external playbook: Build a community of company evangelists for word of mouth. Wilder said he and another manager recently launched a WOMWiki for employees. It outlines all of Intuit's WOM work. A group of some 100 WOM advocates meet weekly via phone to share ideas and spread knowledge.
The idea is paying off. It has led to the development and ongoing support of QuickBooks' online community website, a forum for the 3.4 million users of QuickBooks to share and exchange ideas, ask questions, and provide peer support. A year after its launch, the QuickBooks Community has 70,000 registered members and hosts 100,000 visitors per month.
Internal support for word of mouth has led to ongoing support of the TurboTax Inner Circle, in which a few hundred self-selected TurboTax customers volunteer regular feedback about product issues. Christine Morrison is the program lead; this year, she invited Inner Circle members to visit Intuit's offices and meet with programmers. That spread considerable word of mouth inside Intuit. Company employees were amazed that customers were excited to set foot inside Intuit. That's the power of Mecca, though, especially for true-believer pilgrims.
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Intuit's forward-thinking approach does not surprise me. I would like to know if in building their internal WOM network, Intuit recruited internal "influencers" vs. the average associate. Of course both are important but I am thinking "influencers" are critical, especially during beginning stages.
John Easton
John,
I think the group is self-selecting, that is, people who "get" this word of mouth thing at the company now have a group they can join. I don't know that Scott had to heavily recruit anyone. Scott, anything to add?
Basically Jackie is correct - it was a self selecting process.
The internal early adopters of this new Word of Mouth stuff, raised their hands, volunteered to join the group, and help lead the way (for Intuit).
The leaders of this initiative made sure that everyone agreed on what we were solving for, and were open to empowering and encouraging the early adopters...
And the early adopters led the way by example. One of the things they volunteered to do was be part of a buddy system, so if someone is a bit gun shy, they can partner with and seek advice from another employee.
Hope this helps. Come visit us at QuickBooksGroup.com
Scott Wilder
Jackie!
Thanks for mentioning the TurboTax Inner Circle... I'm honored to be included on your blog. Seeing engineers, product managers, and vice-presidents mingle with customers at the “Inner Circle Member Appreciation Night” was a thing of beauty. As you said, the surprisingly nice side-effect was the considerable internal buzz it produced. The night was so successful we’re considering other ways to reach out to members who live in areas of the country outside of San Diego County for similar experiences.
One note: there are actually almost 6,000 current members of the Inner Circle and growing every day (especially now that it’s tax season).
To John’s point, our Inner Circle effort was built on the notion that we’d start with “influencers” who would seek out the opportunity to share feedback with us to help us improve. From my perspective, having these early adopter/passionate folks working along side us was the right place to start. This year we’ll actually make the “front door” for signing up more visible, possibly leading to a larger, hopefully just-as-active group.
It was a pleasure and an honor to meet you and Ben in person!
Christine Morrison, TurboTax Inner Circle
Jackie
The recruiting of selected staff to drive the internal grapevine through WOM is more challenging than the external kind of WOM.
The first big challenge in my experience is identifying ther right people in the internal network to recruit.
But the biggest challenge is in persuading management to be open, honest and forthcoming about the e.g. change programme, that they want to inform others about. It isn't that individuals are not open, honest and forthcoming, just that they find it hard to do when wearing their manager hats.
Once you know who should be doing the talking and have been open, honest and forthcoming about what you would like them to say, the rest, as they say, is up to them.
Graham Hill
