WordMouth.com - A Major New Website for UK Consumers to Promote Local Businesses, Services and Events Through Recommendation

WordMouth.com aims to allow the general public to promote the businesses and services in their local area through recommendations. Businesses can also use graphics to adverise their services - and update their ad instantly (menus, opening times, special offers, history, awards, etc).

(PRWEB) September 2, 2004 -- WordMouth (http://www.wordmouth.com) is a groundbreaking new website for businesses and consumers across the UK. The idea for WordMouth.com came after a conversation between friends last December about finding a decent restaurant: the Yellow Pages is great, but how do you know which of the listed entries is going to be any good? The same goes for local traders and other services. There are already websites which display products rated with customer feedback (Amazon, Kelkoo etc)... so why not rate and comment on companies too?

We did our research and found that there simply isn't anything even similar to this available in any country. Sure, there are some specific sites for rating restaurants and hotels and some very underused and empty sites in the UK, but nothing that held all businesses, services, community groups and organisations under one roof.

The idea was to build a website where the general public discuss their experiences both locally and across the UK, for free. At the same time we hoped to enable services to provide up to the minute graphical advertising, as well as an opportunity to receive feedback all for a small annual cost. It was surprising to find that such an obvious concept has not been developed into a viable solution already.

We really believe that WordMouth has the potential to deliver a whole new, and fairer, way of marketing – promoting services not through money, but through reputation and recommendation. It should also help many people find a reliable and professional service both in the UK and in their local area, removing some of the risk of hiring a rogue trader or getting poor service. The ultimate goal is to pull communities closer together, enhance "business to business" & "business to consumer" interactions, and improve standards of service across the board.

At first we worried about companies getting negative feedback, but only people who are confident of their own reputation need apply and their average score, if good, shouldn't be affected by a few bad ones. Besides, it is hoped that the benefits of being able to instantly link to your shop menu, list prices, opening times, company history and so on will balance this out. Not to mention being able to talk directly to your customer base more readily and cheaply than ever before.

WordMouth is free for the public, and only a few pounds per year for companies. The site is already RSS enabled, and we have many ideas for other enhancements to benefit both consumers and services alike should the idea catch on.

Alastair Shortland
WordMouth
Malvern,UK
http://www.wordmouth.com
media@wordmouth.com

business consumer consumers word of mouth advertising marketing local rating rated ratings uk

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