In his book Truth or Delusion, Dr Ivan Misner addresses the topic of Word of Mouth.  Many people seek out WOM for their businesses, they network everywhere, advertise, and utilize PR all in the hope of generating WOM for their company.

Unfortunately not all word of mouth is good for your company.  In fact WOM can be very dangerous, because you cannot control it because you cannot control people.

Think about the game we use to play as children, telephone.  You told someone a story, they told the next person, who told the next, right on down the line.  By the time it got to the end, it was not even close to what you said.

You cannot rely on good employees to carry your word of mouth, you cannot rely strictly on good customer service although poor customer service is a sure way togenerate some negative word of mouth.  If you don’t believe that, listen to what people say about AT&T.  It is rarely good, in fact even their employees are quick to agree that the company is difficult.