Type of site review site Website wordofmouth.com.au Registration available | Available in English Alexa rank 28,084 (August 2014) | |
Owner Word Of Mouth Online Pty. Ltd. | ||
Word of Mouth (previously WOMO - Word Of Mouth Online) is an Australian based business review site containing crowd-sourced reviews of local businesses. The site is entirely based on user-generated content and as of 2013, it was ranked as top Australian business review website with 400k reviews for business based in Australia.
Contents
History
Word of Mouth was founded in 2007 as WOMOW Pty Ltd by Fiona Adler and Brad Bond in 2007. They conceived the initial idea for Word of Mouth by Fiona's frustrations in locating good local tradespeople in the Melbourne. Initially the site was focused on businesses in Melbourne, later in 2008 it expanded to the whole of Australia. The website is solely build on user-generated confined content, the business listing is induced when members first review a business on the website.
In 2011, the 'W' was dropped from the acronym and launched as womo.com.au.
The company was bought by Oneflare Pty Ltd in early 2015 and have since relocated to Sydney working in the offices with Oneflare. It's referred as the Yelp of Australia. As of December 2015, Word of mouth has 480,000 reviews for local businesses operating in Australia.
In 2016 it underwent a brand refresh and was re-launched as Word of Mouth
Features
Word of Mouth's website, wordofmouth.com.au, is a crowd-sourced local business review and social networking site. The site has pages devoted to individual locations, such as hotels or professional services, where website users can submit a review on their products or services. Word of Mouth developed a TrustFactor methodology which incorporates how much the website know about the individual and how much history and contributions they have with the site. Each review on the site is weighted by the member's TrustFactor. Reviews from members with a high TrustFactor counting for more than reviews from those with a low TrustFactor. It helps in evaluating and weighing the overall review for business from more trusted members. Some reviews from new members are not live until they gain reputation by reviewing other businesses.
It also runs point based rewards program based on their reviews, referrals and other actions. The gained points are exhibited on a leadership board and are later claimed for shopping vouchers.
Revenue
Word of Mouth's revenues come from businesses upgrading their listing to join a premium program called the Happy Customers Program. This provides tools for businesses to encourage customer reviews and showcase their reviews through physical and digital collateral. It also allows businesses to display additional information on their page and are given priority placement with sponsored tags in the search results.
Criticism
Word of Mouth has been criticized by consumers as being too lenient on businesses and sometimes not publishing negative reviews, and regularly upsets businesses that object to their negative reviews. The founders, however, state that they maintain a system to ensure that the truth is heard in a way that does not incite litigation.