Vista and word of mouth

Last week I was talking at a tech support conference in Milan about the impact of web2.0 on word of mouth. How fast and deep the word spreads and how it changes the nature of tech support and other industries. A great example came up afterwards.

Someone from Microsoft (MS) told me that they were getting great sat scores on Vista from the customers who were talking to them. But that contact volumes were way down on those predicted. Having heard several comments from colleagues in various countries who have "upgraded" I wasn't surprised. They wouldn't go to MS for help given the seriousness of problems they felt had been sold to them in this upgrade. A quick email round the 10 countries we work from showed this to be the case. They were using forums and blogs, anything but talking to MS.

The tech industry often leads the way in terms of how support and contact develops in other industries, so no one can be complacent. Witness the rush to claim compensation from banks and their penalty charges. They didnt try teh banks because they knew they wouldnt listen. But once consumers had a way of getting somewhere through collaboration (enabaled by web2.0) and sharing how to do it, the floodgates opened.

Maybe we need a process called "what our customers are not saying to us". Or an alert for when traffic doesn't do what it has done historically - the step function in customer behaviours signal changes of much greater depth than mere frustration