You probably heard about it too because it generated so much negative word of mouth that it spread like wildfire across the Internet and news media as angry customers rightfully vented their frustrations toward the company. It was clear that this PR nightmare would have a devastating impact on jetBlue’s previously high-flying reputation. Something had to be done fast to save it!

What did jetBlue do in an attempt to turn highly negative word of mouth into positive word of mouth?

1. Listen to their customers, admit their mistakes and show sincere remorse

Dave Neeleman, the CEO of jetBlue (not just their VP of Customer Service), responded quickly (not weeks later after a full investigation) with a written apology letter to jetBlue’s customers. But this was not your typical form letter written by the marketing department – this was a sincere, thoughtful apology that repeatedly expressed remorse and embarrassment while openly admitting the mistakes that were made by the company rather than trying to make excuses for them. Haven’t we all grown tired of hearing empty excuses from airline companies!

2. Commit to making significant changes to improve customer service

Mr. Neeleman described specific corrective steps to address their operational issues and committed to implementing them. He then went a step further by publishing the jetBlue Customer Bill of Rights, a first in the airline industry, which describes how operational issues, like flight cancellations and delays, will be handled and what rights jetBlue customers have when they do.

3. Back up their promises with real results

Knowing that “talk is cheap” and results are what matter, Mr. Neeleman made the very public decision to replace their Chief Operating Officer as a result of this incident. This is not at all surprising, but it does demonstrate a commitment to making significant changes quickly to resolve their operational issues and restore customer and investor confidence.

How will these steps result in positive word of mouth?

In jetBlue’s case, by listening to the concerns of their customers, accepting responsibility for their mistakes, and showing sincere remorse, the CEO demonstrated that the company cares about its’ customers. But to effectively turn this crisis into a positive word-of-mouth opportunity, jetBlue must remain dedicated to making significant changes to their operational and customer service strategies, such as the Customer Bill of Rights, that will deliver measurable improvements in service levels and customer satisfaction. They cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes that caused this incident or they will lose most of the positive word of mouth gained up to that point.

There is no doubt that it will take a long time for jetBlue to restore their reputation, but if they succeed positive word of mouth will prevail and their customer community will be more loyal than ever before. Their stock price will go back up too. And I will be happy to fly with them again!

The jetBlue situation illustrates the fundamental truth that customers want to know that a company cares about them, listens to their feedback, and takes action to address issues. At Bazaarvoice, my team helps our clients use customer ratings and reviews as a valuable source of product feedback, and take corrective action like redesigning a product to lower its return rate, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty. An excellent example of this is how PETCO shares 1 and 2 star rated reviews with their customer service department so they can proactively reach out to customers and determine how to address their issue.

We also provide a tool called the Client Response tool to allow clients to directly respond to customer reviews online. This lets their customers know openly that issues have been clarified or resolved, showing that our clients listened and took action if needed. The positive word of mouth that ensues not only improves the company’s reputation, but also increases customer satisfaction and loyalty, which are the keys to driving company growth.

How does your company turn negative word of mouth into positive?

I'm speaking at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's "Word of Mouth Basic Training" event on April 18 in New Orleans. I will speak on aquiring, amplifying and measuring online word of mouth. Brett, Brant and myself have attended and spoken at WOMMA's events for the past year and they always have a great turnout. If you're interested in learning more about where marketing is heading, hearing some forward-thinking case studies, come see me at the event. Drop me a note if you're coming! Cost is $795, but that's a bargain compared to most conferences…especially for the network of people you will meet and content you get. Register here.

There’s a lot of buzz about word of mouth. It’s not surprising. Customers are exposed to thousands of marketing messages and trust each one less and less. Customers also are paralyzed by product choice: Search “Stapler” on Froogle.com and you’ll find 25,000 results. Naturally, we’re turning to each other to make wiser purchase decisions.

Marketing executives have noticed. CMO magazine reported that 43 percent of U.S. executives cite word of mouth as a top strategy for the coming year. But that doesn’t mean they know what to do about it. And it doesn’t mean that once they find something to do, it will stick.

Ironically, very few marketers actually are focused on word of mouth. Though the Word of Mouth Marketing Association has seen tremendous growth this year, the ideas and strategies of word of mouth have not seen the light of day across the entire marketing department.

How can something so important to a company’s success fail to get the attention of multiple functions? The problem is in the nature of a corporation and the nature of the topic.

Picture two cliffs and a gorge between them. On one cliff is the ostensibly right-brain ambiguity of “word of mouth.” We live this instinctively every day as customers, spending roughly 30 percent of our conversations spreading word of mouth and always seeking it out. On the other cliff is the left-brained, financially grounded operational process and systems that are the corporation. And we live on this cliff every day at work with our colleagues.

Any employee can “get” that word of mouth happens and that it affects business success. We all give it or get it as customers. But in our daily jobs, few people consciously focus on aspects in their business that can impact, influence or improve word of mouth. Yet everything we do at work impacts the quality of our products, services and systems … which impacts word of mouth.

What’s missing is a “bridge” between these two cliffs. An operational strategy for word of mouth sets forth a set of ever-present processes that employees (and their bosses) have to operate by and react to daily.

Occasional research insights are important to guide the corporate ship like a compass, but not enough to sustain its course. Have you ever sat through a comprehensive two-hour research presentation, rich with customer insight? Maybe attended a focus group or usability study? You may walk away inspired, perhaps with a few customer-centric action items. But in a week you’re back to the day-to-day grind, focusing on internal measures, making decisions in functional silos and operating without “customer oxygen.”

To put word of mouth on a conscious, operational level inside a business, the strategy needs a frequency and reach that we know works with external marketing. You develop a program that makes the word of mouth improvement ever-present, visible and participatory for your colleagues (not just you). Specifically, this is a program — not a project, not a campaign, not a promotion. It’s not one presentation, a focus group, or any short-lived effort that is forgotten when everyone goes back to their day job.

For a corporate system to swallow a healthy dose of customer centricity, a program needs to be candy-coated with operational flavor: processes, metrics, owners, dates and accountability. It becomes a process that we can improve, which is something we can understand in our work lives. Your managers, colleagues and employees can feed on daily customer-centric tactics, and insights are part of their job and performance. While we’re at it, let’s reinforce the importance of word of mouth by putting customer-centric metrics at the top of that weekly executive dashboard. \

Ever since I took my first marketing class at the University of Texas at Austin, I have been fascinated by customer behavior.  It has been the driving theme of my career.  What has been most exciting to me is being there when a company finds out how their customers really behave and the lightbulb goes on.  When their customer IQ is increased.

At Coremetrics, I had the good fortune of seeing this transition many times.  It was the biggest part of what drew me to start the business in the first place and, especially, with a services model at its core.  It is hard for me to believe now, but back in 1999 the acronym "ASP" ("Application Service Provider") didn't exist.  I knew from my background in consulting that an outsourced model for Web analytics would ultimately be the best way to deliver real analysis to clients.  Because of my background, this was intuitive to me; it just made sense.  It was later, in 2000, when someone told me, "you guys are an ASP".  The label had been born, although I'm not sure who gave birth.  Label or not, the business model works.  The ideal ASP is a marriage of services and software to create an ever-evolving solution.

At Coremetrics, it was exciting to be with a client when they saw, for the first time, where they had been wasting their online marketing dollars and decide how to reinvest their budget.  Or witness that the home page creative they had debated for hours every week really didn't drive sales like they thought it did.  Or learn that a product had an abnormally high shopping cart abandonment rate and they could increase sales by tweaking the price, the message, or the placement.  Or see their customers close their browser when the "next step" button on their checkout page was below the fold.  We drove real value.  Got real feedback.  Turned on the lightbulbs.  Liberated with data.  And ensured that the service would always work.  And customer IQ skyrocketed.

And now I am seeing the same thing here at Bazaarvoice.  Except this time the data are conversations.  Conversations between real customers.  When customers speak to each other, they do so in a different way than they speak to companies.  They speak in an authentic way.  They have no agenda.  Do you really care if your friend sees the movie you spent five minutes telling them about?  Not really.  You just want to express yourself.  The pursuit of the real.  There is a little bit of maven in all of us.  It's human nature.  It's called word of mouth.  And it is only increasing as we get overloaded with marketing messages and choices with the compression of less time.

Our clients are dramatically increasing their customer IQ.  They are tapping into conversations that they have never heard before.  And it is driving their business in fundamentally new ways.  Straight from the customer's mouth to the EVP of Merchandising's ear – direct and authentic.  Products will evolve.  Customer service will morph.  Marketing will change.  And customers will vote with a renewed sense of loyalty.  This will be taught in business schools one day.

I am going to make a prediction.  When you put website analytics and word-of-mouth analytics together, it will have a synergistic effect on customer IQ.  And, to me, that is very exciting.  For our clients, it will be game-changing.