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For those not in the US, take your equivalent to our BBB (Better Business Burea), which stores customer complaints on companies and gives them a scorecard.
They're not perfect, but when you're looking for someone to fix your roof, order carpet, work on your car, etc, and if you have no other data,
it really helps you weed out "who not to call" when presented with 50+ companies in your area.
The local yellow pages (business listings) on-line do not contain data on BBB scores. And the BBB website does not list ALL businesses, but just those they have scores on.
So, let's have these combined so that you can go to a website, enter your location, your search term for a business or service, and your results list all the companies in your area, along with their BBB score (and a link to the specifics on the BBB site.)
BBB website
http://www.bbb.org/
the BBB [sophocles, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
BBB advanced search
http://search.bbb.o...h.html?advanced=Yes
still doesn't show ALL biz's like the YP's. (not by far) [sophocles, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
NexTag
http://www.nextag.com/
Price comparisons and seller ratings [ConsultingDetective, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
[link]
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Useful idea. Useless links. |
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I had to read this twice -- thought it was a collaboration between the BBB and the publishers of local phone directories. That, thought I, would be useful but would, I thought, prove worrisome to publishers who may depend on revenue from their advertisers including those with many complaints. As an aside, there exist well-intentioned companies who draw the fire of a few (stupid) irate patrons and have their BBB record uncategorically tarnished. |
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Sorry just a small fishbone only because |
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1) Competitors phone up the BBB and complain about your company just to reduce your score .. and get all their mates to do the same |
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2) Anyone with a really low score simply changes their company name to have themselves 'reset' |
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3) Just because my customers cant be bothered to vote .. its not fair that I only have an average score |
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4) I phone up every friend/family within the local area and say 'vote for me' |
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5) My special discount, £10 off if you big-me-up for the BBB score. |
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[britboy]
1) Spurious complaints don't seem to be a problem now with retailer scoring groups.
2) A reset score makes you an unknown quantity and therefore much worse than high-scoring trusted companies.
3) While a small percentage of customers are likely to vote for or against you, the same is true for your competitors.
4) Even small companies have hundreds if not thousands of customers. A dozen scores will make a small difference...and one that your competitors can easily emulate.
5) How can you know? Besides, this doesn't seem to be a problem for companies that solicit feedback from customers today. Good service is cheaper than 10 quid/18.34 bucks. |
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Back in 2004, there was no "YELP".... in 2011, this
idea seems so obvious. |
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