Feefo, Facebook and Twitter

May 9th, 2011

Everybody wants to cuddle up to Facebook and Twitter, and that includes us.  We’re already allowing people to post their comments to their Facebook ‘wall’ or their Twitter account (with an encouraging uptake), and hope that this will promote Feefo as a brand for honesty, as well as giving friends and followers the chance to visit our site and our members’ sites.  Since the feedbacks are flowing in thick and fast (you only have to visit our front page to see that) we hope and expect to see much more of Feefo on these two sites.

Another great feature that we’ve added for our clients is letting them use our new Facebook App to stream their feedback to their Facebook page, allowing people to see their feedback and product reviews coming in in real time.  We really are covering all areas, so will be hard to ignore.

By making the leaving of feedback so simple and quick but without the prescriptive approach often adopted, we believe that we get only the really relevant comments. After all, if you take the trouble to leave some sort of review, you write something that you feel is helpful either to the supplier (such as “packaging was inadequate”) or to other customers like you (such as “I am normally a size L, but this came up too small so had to go for XL”).  The trouble with the formulaic approach is that you only get the answers you’re looking for, and people tend not to bother to read the question before answering.  Who really distingushes between Fit/ Quality/ Fabric/Value for Money?  If I rate something as Good or Excellent, surely my answer to these attribute based questions will all be 4 or 5 stars?

I’ve a real feeling that when it comes to reviews and feedback, and the asking of questions, “Less is More”.  Ask fewer closed questions and go for one single open question – Tell us what you think of XYZ.  It’s amazing what you learn.  And it’s less amazing that so many more people engage with this simple approach.

To see the feedback coming in right now, click here – http://www.feefo.com/feefo/latestfeedbacklist.jsp

I think that tomorrow I’ll have a rant about how to respond well to negative feedback, and how to really annoy people who leave it (but that is NOT the objective, it’s just what some companies do by mistake….)

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The government is on our side.

May 4th, 2011

The Cabinet Office has published a very interesting document.  Entitled ‘Better Choices:  Better Deals’ it lays out the government’s strategy to empower consumers.

The Government Paper

The Government Paper

It’s a long document, and mostly good common sense.   The bit that interests us comes at page 31, when it says

The Government will facilitate the development of a self-regulatory quality mark to promote responsible businesses and to help consumers identify which online tools they can trust

This could be very good news for us, as we believe that we are among the very few online tools that consumers really can trust.   After all, as the document says, there are plenty of sites where businesses can get their friends to write reviews (and they do), or where a business can be unfairly slated by disgruntled employees, or even held to ransom by a nasty new form of blackmail (“We’ll let people say what they want about you, but you have to pay us to put your side of the argument”).

It’s about time that the Government gave a lead on these matters.   There’s so much happening on the internet that unless you are very savvy (or under 18, which amounts to the same thing), you have no idea whether a site is genuinely promoting your interests, and the interests of good business practice in general, or is a fly-by-night money-making scheme possibly domiciled in a far distant country.   Just because there are large numbers of websites without well-known brand names does not mean that they are not to be trusted.  In fact, the vast majority offer good service, and some offer really outstanding service, but which are they?  We’re here to let you be aware of some of the really good suppliers, because ALL our suppliers have volunteered to let every customer have their say on our website, unedited, in public.

So let’s hope the Government backs up words with action soon.

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Mothering Sunday flowers

March 25th, 2010

It’s cheering to see the number of flowers that are ordered for Mothering Sunday.  For the last two years Mothering Sundays  Flying Flowers have been members of Feefo, and, a week after the event there has been a massive surge of feedback – many thousands of comments in a day, which far outpaces days such as Valentine Day.

Of course, you could say that it’s a sad reflection of how many people cannot get to see their mothers on that day, so have to send flowers by courier instead, but my reading is still that we love our mums.  It’s also creditable that Flying Flowers’ feedback rating remains at 93%  over a period that must stretch their resources hard.  I can think of few businesses where it is more difficult to assure the quality of your product when delivered.

Take a look at the Flying Flowers feedback.

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Product back-links from Feefo

March 25th, 2010

For some time now, we have had the option on Feefo for suppliers to set up back-links from Feefo feedback directly to the relevant product page on their site.  However, for some suppliers, this has been difficult,as the only changeable part of the link has been the product code.  So we’ve been able to link simply to those sites where the product page has a URL such as ‘http://mysite.com/displayproduct/<productcode>, but not where additional information is needed.

We have rectified this now by allowing suppliers to send us a product link with each sale.  Instead of inserting the product code into a pre-defined link on hte supplier file, we can use the product link that’s been sent to us with the sale.  In this way, we can link back to any site that can send us the product page links for individual products.

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New reports on Feefo

March 18th, 2010

We’ve been steadily adding reports to the Feefo system, and I strongly advise those who have access to them to look through them – particularly if you are categorising your feedback.  The ‘Key Reports’ menu is the most important.

But today I want to draw attention to three simple reports that we’ve just added, all on the ‘Miscellaneous reports’ menu, until we can think of a better place for them.

The first is a simple Traffic Report that shows you, on a daily basis, how many emails we’ve sent on your behalf, and how many ratings we’ve received back.   The second is a list of most of the Emails that have Bounced.   This should be handy for cleaning up your customer lists, though we cannot be comprehensive as different servers respond in individual ways to emails that cannot be delivered.  The last is a list of those Customers who have ‘Opted-out’ of receiving Feefo emails.   There may be an implication that these people don’t want to receive emails from our suppliers either.

These are not reports that will be central to your business, but we hope that they’ll be useful ‘fringe’ benefits of Feefo membership

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Google Rich Snippets – more

March 1st, 2010

Feefo has now been ‘rich snippet’ compliant for a couple of months.    I discovered, rather late in the day, that we needed to inform Google that we were compliant so that they would assess the site for suitability to display the rich snippets.

Since then,  Google has not yet displayed our rich snippets on their listings, which is very frustrating.   I have tried a couple of times to get some idea of a timescale between letting them know of our compatibility and their recognition, but, as generally with Google, queries like this fall into a black hole.

I can fully understand why a vast business such as Google wants to restrict the number of queries it handles, but it it encourages us all to a particular course of action in the belief that we are promoting Google’s agenda, I wish that they’d make an effort to let us know what’s happening.

I’ve been encouraging all our clients to get their own sites ‘rich snippet compliant’.  It is indisputable that the presence of genuine independent reviews on any site must give it some precedence on search engine rankings, if the search engine is doing its job properly.  But it worries me that I may be asking my clients to make an effort when the return may be a long time coming.

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Feefo and Facebook

March 1st, 2010

Last week we were given a great idea by friends at Actinic – why not let customers leaving feedback spread the word through Facebook and Twitter?

This is stunningly clever on two counts.  From the point of view of the customer, if he or she is keen to tell the world their opinion of some product or service they’ve received, there are lots of times when they’d like to tell their friends particularly.  When I started Feefo, I was thinking of all the times that I’d received particularly good service, and would have been delighted to have told my friends.  But it is also generally good for our suppliers, who get the good news about their customer commitment spread in the most authoritative way possible – friend to friend.

Doubters suggest to me that, of course, this is also a very effective way of spreading bad news.  This is true.  However bad news spreads anyway, and the links that we put on the Facebook content bring those who are interested straight back to the general feedback page for the supplier with the particular feedback highlighted.  Customers’ friends thus get a chance to see what everybody else thinks, as well as seeing the supplier’s response to the complaint.

We’ll be monitoring how many people use the Facebook link, and what comments are being distributed, as well as which of their friends bother to investigate further.  I’ll follow up when we have enough data.

So far we have implemented the first part of our Facebook interface.  After leaving feedback, everybody is asked ‘Would you like to let your frends on Facebook know of your feedback?’, and have the usual Facebook button to press.  Shortly we’ll be arranging to let suppliers distribute the feedback though their own Facebook sites, and we’ll fix a feed to Twitter.

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Google rich snippets

December 25th, 2009

We are told that Google is about to change its algorithm to give a much higher priority to reviews.  Good for them.  Even if it’s simply a matter of adding ‘reviews’ to their list of ‘images, maps, etc’, it will be another step in making Google really useful.  If it’s a matter of reordering their standard search, then that’s, from the point of view of Feefo, even better.

In either case, it should make internet traders much more keen to show reviews on their sites.  But these reviews will only be noticed by Google if the HTML for the pages includes the ‘rich snippets’ that Google specified as long ago as May, and which it now hopes to use to identify reviews.

Feefo has these on the feedback pages on our site.   We’ve also prepared an XML feed to our clients’ sites which will automatically generate ‘rich snippets’ on their sites, but our customers are being slow to recognize the great importance of acting on this (it would take very little time indeed for them to adapt their sites to let Google see the reviews for what they are).   This worries us, as we want our clients to benefit from having highly credible reviews in quantity posted on their sites.  The only comforting factor is that Google has a site designed to test pages for ‘rich snippets’ and we have put through, unsuccessfully, a number of pages containing reviews which do not originate from Feefo.   It seems that our competitors are even slower than our customers to pick up this important development

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Good customer relationships pay

October 9th, 2009

Nowadays every online retailer is looking for ways to finesse his opposition – to draw those few extra customers onto his website that will make all the difference between profit and loss. When retailers think of feedback services, they usually do so in this light. They are hoping that they can pay somebody to create them a feedback service that will cost them no extra effort, and which can then be justified direct terms

Pay supplier (£x) + (0 effort) = More customers (£x+)

Of course this is one way to look at feedback, but that’s not why we’er in business.

If you are going to ask your customers for opinions, why aren’t you taking the opportunity to talk to them properly? If you have a chance to show that you really trust your customers, why don’t you take it? If you really do think that you provide a good service, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?

Feefo is not a just a feedback service. It is a way, possibly the only way, and certainly the best way, of showing that you have nothing to hide from your customers.

Of course, you may have something to hide, in which case you probably won’t have a business anyway in a couple of years. Or you may think that it’s too much trouble to bother to hire a customer relations person who can write replies in good English. Or (horror upon horror) you may think that your customers have nothing to tell you. In all cases you are wrong.

Over and over again, in business, being honest with your customers counts. First, if you have a secret, and it gets out despite your efforts, your reputation is ruined. Second, if someone, either aggrieved or malicious, decides to slate you in a blog, you have no defence. Whatever you say, they will respond ‘you would say that’.

The truth in business is that good customer service takes effort. But if you’re going to make an effort, then you should do so as publicly as you can. Feefo is designed to allow you to do just that.

Let’s see what Feefo offers.

First and foremost, a cast-iron, indisputable proof of your claim to care about your customers. Everybody who buys from you knows that, if you don’t deliver, they can say so in public. Everybody can see how you deal with such complaints. Everybody who buys from you knows exactly what they’re getting.

Second, an immediate, second-by-second, indication of what your customers are thinking. Bigger retailers on Feefo get a comment about their products and service almost by the minute, which is open for all to see, not least the boss.

Third, a motivation for everybody in the business to try as hard as they can. They all can see what the customers are thinking, and the percentage of positive comments is the most compelling KPI that can be produced. What value in selling a lot if all the customers hate you?

Fourth, a quick and reliable indication, not only of what products are liked and disliked (which you probably know already), but why they are liked or disliked, which you may well not know.

Fifth – I am almost embarrassed to mention this – all these comments are good for Search Engines. Google and the others are very keen to select sites that will help their users, and unbiased, properly qualified, comments in large quantities are precisely what they are looking for.

Last, but not least, the cosy warm feeling that you can talk and are talking to your customers. Just because you don’t have a shop where they can collar an assistant doesn’t mean that you can’t establish a relationship, and that relationship will eventually decide whether they continue to patronise you, or whether they find your competitors more friendly.

Show me a retailer who says that any of these ‘benefits’ are unimportant, and I’ll show you a fool.

Here’s an alternative formula

Pay supplier a tiny amount( £x) + Put an extra bit of effort into answering your customers (£y) = Increased sales now (£2x + 2y) + Being in business next year (£XXX + YYY)

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Feefo and Bazaarvoice

October 9th, 2009

How Bazaarvoice & Feefo Differ

This comment is for the benefit of any reader who may happen to run one of the bigger sites on the web!  Many of such businesses we approach have heard of Bazaarvoice, but never heard of us. For those of you who have never heard of Bazaarvoice, let me give a brief introduction.

Bazaarvoice is an onsite feedback system. Many of the bigger businesses that allow site users to register and make comments about their products are using the system developed by then. They have spent a great deal of money marketing their feedback system, which is why insiders know their name, while they may not know ours. But this may make people believe that we are simply another version of Bazaarvoice.

This is a very long way from the truth, so I thought that I had better tell everyone the differences

First and foremost, Bazaarvoice is a blog insofar as there is no screening of who is making comments. You or I can go onto any site using Bazaarvoice, and make any comment we feel like about any product regardless of whether we have tried it or not. The product manager can also, if he wishes, make comments.. Although there is no reason to suppose that most of the comments are not genuine, this fact alone, together with the ‘moderation’ which Bazaarvoice applies to the feedback, destroys any notion that these comments are certifiably unbiased.

Feefo, on the other hand, is specifically and absolutely designed to be unbiased. The comments appear on an independent website, all comments are from customers, and all customers are invited to comment. No comments are removed except if they are profane libellous, or contain personal or business details that are inappropriate, and, in the very few cases where we have edited a comment (apart from removing personal details) we say so as part of the comment.

These fundamental differences result in many smaller differences.

  1. Feefo claims, and can support the claim, to engender customer trust. Our brand enhances the brand of our customers. It does so by ensuring that every customer of a supplier is able to leave unedited feedback through an independent party. To prove that we are independent, we ask the supplier to put our logo on their site. It is noteworthy that brands such as Thomas Pink, which are very highly regarded, are happy to put our brand name in the centre of their product pages (on the new site to be launched shortly).
  2. The feedback on our site is transaction based. It is extremely difficult to tie in ‘blog’ comments to transactions (comments such as ‘I have not received my order’ can thus be very time-consuming). Customers of Feefo say that “match back” to the customer is a vital differentiator.
  3. Feefo encourages customers to mention the service values of the supplier. This means that any lapse in service comes to the notice of the supplier almost immediately. Suppliers who have joined Feefo with gaps in their service have quickly improved their ratings, often reducing the negatives by over 50% in the first six months.
  4. Feefo encourages a conversation. In general, we ask our suppliers to ensure that they reply to negative feedback within two hours. This is a very strong tool for customer retention. Bazaarvoice has no intrinsic ‘reply’ facility
  5. Feefo raises many more comments than Bazaarvoice, because we are asking people to comment on specific transactions about products they have received.
  6. Our reporting system is said to be better. In particular, we are producing reports which will flag up any event that requires the attention of managers on a daily basis
  7. We are far cheaper. The business model adopted by Bazaarvoice requires an army of ‘moderators’ as well as an even larger army of salesmen and marketers, so they have to charge prices that are many times what we charge.

In short, Bazaarvoice claims to increase sales through adding feedback facilities to a supplier site. Feefo claims to make businesses better by letting them talk to their customers and promote their brand values in public.

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