Dee, We've done a ton of research asking consumers about the most powerful ways to reach them about a product and recommendation from friend/family always comes out as 1st or 2nd. Problem with ROI is that in many cases you have little to no spending in WOMM for which to track a return. Tracking seems to be the big opportunity. I think this starts by digging back through a interaction or two to understand how and why the recommender gave the recommendation. Did the company give the recommender topics and tools to make it easy to talk? The source and format of the recommendation will be key.

http://gaspedal.typepad.com/nuwom/2007/07