Customer Service and feedback

Hi,

I'm interested in how local businesses receive feedback and deal with customer service. For example, if your business had 100 email complaints, how would you resolve those issues?
If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I can even drop by your location to discuss in person for 5 minutes.

I'm developing a customer service/feedback site. It's not another review site like yelp. And yes it's going to be a free site. I'm not selling anything. I'm just conducting a survey for my application.

Thank you,
Nick




This post has been edited by nleung on Dec 14 2008, 04:54 PM

Hi Nick, what kind of businesses are you looking for input from? The type we have here are mostly "mom 'n pop" businesses and they're usually too busy running their store to pay too much attention online.

I realize that you don't want to reveal your secret sauce by giving too many details about what you're trying to do or the kind of information that will help you, but you might need more specific questions and more realistic scenarios. Getting 100 email complaints for most small businesses I know is not very realistic. The other thing is that a lot of small businesses are not reachable directly online.

Small businesses are very hard to work with online. Few of them have the kind of resources to mount any kind of sustained and effective online presence.

I have an online segment of my business -- and I would be happy to discuss things with you.

I am a small business as Sheldon mentioned -- and the volume may not be as big as you seem to be looking for. For example -- if I received 100 email complaints I would either shoot myself or go the the nearest 'watering hole' -- or actuall maybe both!

Back to being serious -- I probably get one to three email complaints a month -- mostly because their order is late, arrived broken or something...

Dana
gargoylestore.com

If mom and pop shops are too busy to pay attention to online posts, then why do a lot of small businesses pay attention to their reviews on yelp?

We're working on a customer service management site.
Customers can post a question, suggestion, issue, discussion, or praise on a business profile. The business owner can now sort and reply to those posts on the same thread.
Hence, if 100 customers have the same question, those customers don't have to email the business. They would just view the message board to see if the small business has address that question. This also allows small businesses to engage and build community with their customers because customers see that the businesses care.

The site is called www.feedbackjar.com (invite code: midmtn) and we're in the bay area, so if any small business would like to meet in person for 5 mins or have any feedback, please let me know.
The site is also free. Like I said I'm not making anyone buy anything.

QUOTE (nleung @ Dec 9 2008, 03:33 PM)

If mom and pop shops are too busy to pay attention to online posts, then why do a lot of small businesses pay attention to their reviews on yelp?

That's different. Reading what people are saying about you is a passive activity and even if they engage and engage effectively with the Yelp users, they're engaged in a responsive activity rather than a proactive one. That's not what I'd consider a sustained online presence.

Let's put it this way... there are a lot more people who can appreciate good writing than people who can write well. Just the fact that someone is able to read postings on Yelp doesn't mean they understand how to leverage opportunities created by it. Of all the businesses paying attention to their reviews on Yelp, there are a smaller subset who are actively engaging the Yelp community.

Since you're working a feedback site, I don't need to point out that a lot of the reviews on Yelp are not really feedback and a lot aren't really even reviews. Many are simply comments.