Paying for independent feedback

[charles cawley]

I have not said how good these people are, just that we are trying out something new; to adhere to the law is not a business option. Just as in previous postings, the intention was to share information so we could all benefit. I was looking forward to other information but, so far, very little has been produced.

The aim was to give something and then we could all benefit by other contributions so getting something that no one contributor could produce by themselves. I had no intention to praise this supplier to the skies, the intention was mutual gain by sharing information and experiences.

This is what it is all about: give and take and sharing information.

If only 'free' is to be trusted, as nothing in life is free, you will not get very far with that. I will not go on about this any more but do hope you might consider offering something positive that we can all share.

[Nemo]

I think it's great that having decided to go down the route of getting reviews, you have chosen a different provider to the monopoly that is TA.

I am not eligible anyway for TA, but I like to think I am a champion of the smaller or more niche sites. Not that feefo is necessarily small or niche, but it is so important for us to prevent a monopoly on a service wherever possible. The many negative comments about HL and HA are proof of this on other threads currently.

I personally use rated-places.com for my reviews, which is a small site and one I hope will survive, but in this fast moving world who knows which site will prosper and which will founder in years to come?

[Jimbo]

Change is coming. We struggle with change and do our best to keep up. Those businesses that do not or will not adapt to change will not survive as the reality of this economic crisis hits.

Winston Churchill:

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.

It’s intriguing, this modern confidence in ‘feedback’ – the unshakeable feeling that the mere shining of a light into arcane places will automatically bring beneficial change to us all. The oxygen of the truth will set us free. Governments are at it too – in the UK, Levenson turned hidden stones examining the unhealthy (and sometimes unlawful) relationship between politicians, the press and the police - and all sorts of nasty things crawled out. But, as soon as the report was published, it was immediately punted into the long grass by those in power with a vested interest in things remaining as they are.

In pre-internet days, in my highly competitive field of photography, we always stayed sardine-close to our clients and actively sought feedback from them - if for no other reason than trying to ensure our survival in a mightily tough marketplace. That you were ‘only as good as your last job’ may have been a tired cliché, but it was also true. The difference was this feedback was coming directly from the horse’s mouth, not filtered through the distorting mirror of review organisations whose probity isn’t always a given and provided by reviewers of sometimes shaky provenance.

So I’m inclined to adopt the same approach with our rental business. We meet our guests on site, we actively seek feedback from them face to face and solve problems as they arise. We try, more than anything, to make our guests feel special. It's more cottage industry than cutting edge. More community centre than facebook anonymity. (I understand, of course, that Charles is more distant from his clients and indirect feedback may be of more value). And, in the end, as Charles predicts, change may sweep us away.

But it’s an interesting and thought-provoking thread. Would be a shame if it dissolved into acrimony.

[january]

Charles,
It may well be that some of us, and certainly me are struggling to understand the concept.
It is supposed to be an independent review site for consumers, yet reviews can only be placed about suppliers that pay into the review site, and at the price charged by Feefo this is only going to be a very small percentage of a sector.

Having had a good look through, my impression is that the site masquerades as a site where independent reviews of service or goods can be sought, but in effect can only link to suppliers that have paid into the “review system”

If getting constructive feedback, driven by a desire to improve service was the only motive then why not just contact your clients direct at no cost and without passing on info to third parties.

You say that you never pass on client information for use by third parties for marketing or passing on.....but Feefo require that you give them client name and email address, how do you know they will not use it for that purpose ?

In reality the site tries to connect users to suppliers that pay into the system, ie. an advertising medium.

Is this a reasonable assessment or am I missing something ?

[Nemo]

If getting constructive feedback, driven by a desire to improve service was the only motive then why not just contact your clients direct at no cost and without passing on info to third parties.

In reality, unless you set up your own independent website (which then wouldn't be independent) then isn't every review site by it's very nature a third party?

So I use rated places. I solicit my customers to provide a review, but in turn they make direct contact with the website to provide the details. I am asked to verify their identity, but this is obviously a step that is not required within the Feefo system.

Looking at those that have signed up is an impressive list of medium to large companies. Clearly the cost means it is not appropriate to us as individual owners, but they have signed up to a process that means all feedback, positive or negative, is give. It truly is a warts and all feedback system that suggests you want to provide the best customer service that you can and you're prepared to change, if necessary, to do so.

Is there a problem with paying to provide a "service" to your guests? That is after all what's happening; the feedback is an additional service to the guests/clients to assist future guests/clients. All sites at the end of the day have to be paid for by one means or another.

[charles cawley]

January.

Thanks for the questions.

Nemo has kindly added some thoughts. Anyone who has used our service can freely leave comments. We have contacted people direct for nearly three years, but the bad and the poor reviews were never sent to us. Likewise, we had no idea of the classic hair dryer and electric plug problem from the old system... but it popped up here and we have discovered other useful bits of information. This illustrates part of the advantage of using a third party. Another advantage of a third party is that people wishing to leave poor or bad reviews are much more likely to go into writing and say what they feel than if we asked them directly. The public nature of the response is useful in this respect. Paying for bad public reviews is not my idea of fun but they are usually the most valuable for quality purposes. It can feel like saying to someone in a pub, 'here's 50p if you'll smack me in the chops'.

On the point of personal data. No one can be absolutely certain as nothing is absolutely certain in life. If I put money into a bank, yes, it is possible the bank could go bust. Trust and legal sanction is all we have. We have terms of business and a privacy policy and so does Feefo. It is not in the interests of Feefo or us to sell data for peanuts and risk the consequences. Such unnecessary risks for tiny money are usually taken by small time crooks. If you are unwilling to rely on trust and legal sanction, doing business can become impractical to the point of impossible.

I suppose, the stumbling block is whether something paid for is bound to be, or may have a tendency, to be biased or corrupt. The quality aspect is very valuable so manipulating results will remove much of that benefit. That loss would have to be added to any advertising benefit gained by use of the system.

In addition, for larger organisations, the ability for senior management to have a real time reporting system of what is going on is an invaluable tool to hold middle and junior managers to account. Business politics is short circuited and the damage caused by the tendency to intimidate junior staff into silence over management failures is radically reduced. However, as we are very small, this is one benefit which we will not feel for some time.

You will see from our feedback references to the despicable weather of this year. This is not good selling or marketing text. Likewise we have one bad feedback and one poor one. The system picks this sort of stuff up, it is not censored. Although I have done my best to adequately reply to the bad feedback... such things are not great advertising. 'No smoke without fire' is one typical suspicious response. The same goes for the poor feedback, where the weather did its level best to wreck a stay by finding out a hidden leak that had not caused any problems for many years.

You can say that the police are paid for, judges, and so on. The case of the money politicians are paid, it might be said to prove your point! In the end, it all depends on trust. In business, virtually nothing is free, more often, what appears free has hidden costs. Credibility is what it is all about. To get the best from this system, trying to turn it into deceptive advertising and get round the policing of the providers could be to cut off your nose to spite your face. It is a huge leap for a company to display its clean and dirty washing for all to see. Sneaking the dirty stuff away is only to deny what needs improving; in the long run, the service will pay for it because of a faulty attitude towards quality and constant improvement.

This does sound a little text book, but I really believe this is the way to go. People will see the attitude, that is the advertisement; they will then judge accordingly.

[Lindisfarne]

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin