News

Empathica's GoRecommend celebrates two years, 65 million shares

September 14, 2011

Empathica Inc., a provider of Customer Experience Management solutions to more than 200 of the world's most respected brands, has announced that its GoRecommend Advocacy Engine is commemorating two successful years of enhancing customer advocacy and driving positive brand recommendations via social media.

Since its launch, GoRecommend has been used by more than 100 top brands and has driven recommendations that have been shared across more than 65 million friends via social networks.

Launched in June 2009, GoRecommend facilitates the full social advocacy lifecycle, from advocate acquisition and retention, through brand advocacy, to leveraging the social graph for marketing and operational improvement.

After a retail customer experience survey is completed, the GoRecommend engine prompts those customers who were happy with their experience to make an online recommendation via Facebook, Twitter or email. Satisfied customers can also share the brand's campaigns, coupons and promotions with their friends as part of their recommendations. These can be used to drive traffic to the brand's location, website or trial of a specific menu item or product.

"The concept of marketing is changing because the way in which consumers access information is changing," said Julia Staffen, Empathica's Product Evangelist for GoRecommend. "We live in a social era where it's essential that brands understand the role social media plays in influencing people's purchasing decisions. GoRecommend simply empowers brand advocates to share their positive recommendations in a viral manner via the social graph. This is extremely important in driving advocacy and positive and authentic online word of mouth for the brand."

As an example of this trend, Econsultancy has reported that 90 percent of consumers trust recommendations from people they know. A study by social networking site myYearbook also shows that 81 percent of respondents said they had received advice on a product purchase from friends or followers on a social networking site, with 74 percent also saying that the advice was influential. EMarketer data shows the same trend, reporting that consumer reviews are nearly 12 times more trusted than when that message comes from brands themselves.