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Harley-Davidson, Apple, Avon, Amazon Tops In WOM

What do Harley-Davidson, Apple, Avon, and Amazon have in common?

Those brands scored the highest "word of mouth" in their respective industries, according to new research from ForeSee.

The report, "The Word of Mouth Index: Top 100 Brand Edition," is based on more than 21,000 consumer surveys.  

The Word of Mouth Index was designed by ForeSee to help companies accurately measure customer satisfaction.  

"Word of mouth is a crucial business metric," said Larry Freed, ForeSee's CEO, who is also the author of the new book, “Innovating Analytics.” "It is a key part of understanding customer satisfaction -- which, in turn, is predictive of future financial results. With today's consumers more powerful than ever before, it is more critical than ever for companies to correctly assess the customer experience.”

The report also reveals that among automotive brands, Harley-Davidson boasts the highest word-of-mouth score at 64, with Audi at the bottom of the list at 40.

Among computer/electronics manufacturers, Apple leads with a score of 65, while BlackBerry trails with a 39. With a score of 61, Avon leads among consumer packaged goods, with Jack Daniels next in line with a score of 55. Coca-Cola is at the bottom with a 34.

Overall, financial services brands -- including American Express, Citi, Mastercard, and Visa -- received the lowest scores, with an average of 32.

Amazon claimed the highest score among retail brands (67), with Gap trailing far behind at 36. Surprisingly, Facebook achieved a score of only 22, the third-lowest among all 100 brands

The ForeSee data also examines the discrepancy between word-of-mouth scores and Net Promoter scores. Net Promoter is the metric used by 83% of American companies, but ForeSee has determined that it is outdated and inaccurate.  

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Their new data demonstrates that, on average, Net Promoter overstates the number of brand detractors by 780%. The worst industry overstatement is in consumer packaged goods, where the average discrepancy between the scores is 1143%.

"Harley-Davidson" photo from Shutterstock.

1 comment about "Harley-Davidson, Apple, Avon, Amazon Tops In WOM".
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  1. doug white from Blog, October 22, 2013 at 4:35 p.m.

    Reading this report on HOG might provide a little more detail about the company. It's surprisingly complex! http://ideamechanic.blogspot.com/2013/10/idea-mechanic-report-on-harley-davidson.html

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