Stay in the Customer Conversation

Customers have more opportunity than ever to tell us how they really feel about our products and services. Are you listening? Making sure you are in staying in the customer conversation is vital to your business success. Here are four sites that business owners should be aware of to actively listening for customer feedback.

Yelp.com was founded to connect people with great local businesses. Customers can post comments about a company’s services and products and provide a rating based on a scale of 1-5 stars. A business owner can add a free business profile that includes the following services:

· Receive email notification when they are “yelped”
· Respond to any reviews
· Post special offers and photos
· Track the number of people reviewing their page
· Post reviews on their website (minimum review requirement)

Additional information can be found at Yelp.com/business.

MeasuredUp.com is a website that allows the same customer feedback. Instead of a point system, MeasuredUp uses colorful icons indicate the rating for customer service from – a green smile face indicating complete satisfaction to a red frown face -highlighting complete frustration. In addition, the consumer has the option to post a video about their experience with a product or service.

Businesses that want to improve their customer service can create a free company profile and receive emails whenever a customer creates a support ticket online (or via a MeasuredUp support widget). Companies can also choose to be notified when a consumer writes a related review, complaint, or compliment. MeasuredUp uses social media to make contact the service providers as well. Here is an example of what you will see on Twitter:

Companies can take a MeasuredUp Pledge and post a pledge logo on their website showing their commitment to excellent customer service.

 

Complaints.com is another site where consumers can post complaints for public view and businesses can post replies. It allows consumers to learn from other consumer complaints, read about actual consumer experiences, and see how a business treats its customers. The business is e-mailed that a complaint is posted for public view – including the name and e-mail address of the message sender (only if provided), giving more leverage to help solve complaints.

GetSatisfaction.com is a website that allows a company to create a community to gather feedback from the customers about their products and services. Companies can set up a customized community page where customers can ask detailed questions about products, share ideas, etc. For example, Zappos is an online company that has set up a community page. The page includes frequently asked questions, ideas under construction, and common problems, to name a few. To keep a positive tone on the community site, customers and businesses are asked to support The Company-Customer Pact.

We have just reviewed four sites that allow business owners to engage their customers. Feedback should not be feared but embraced to improve service. Given the fact that your customers have many alternatives to sharing their thoughts about your products and services, how do you feel about the value these sites provide?