The eXperience Factor: Consumer Voice Shakes the Marketing Industry

You may have noticed that in certain industries and locations, your Google search results have changed a little.  For instance, if you’re specifically searching for “good” businesses in the hospitality industry (like hotels and resorts), Google will serve those results up to you with a filter of a 4+ star rating, so that those places come BEFORE the rest of the results. Know what this means?

The consumer voice is all. that. matters.

Hear our Chief Strategy Officer Richard Cassey’s thoughts about this.

Google is basically saying that if the customer doesn’t like you, you can’t play with us.  This is not available for all industries yet, but points to a very important trajectory that changes everything.

Look again at when we search for “best hotel in Nebraska.” After the paid results, reviews are again filtered by consumer voice, not by the hotel type. A 2-star hotel ranks higher than a 3-star because of the reviews.

Why this matters

This points to a huge tectonic shift in how people find and choose businesses. It’s the love letter from the web to us, saying that the connection economy is alive and well and the most relevant factor of choice.