Why is online feedback so broken?

Posted on by Billy Tucker

service on yelpConsumers have changed in the past 5 years, now they do more than consume, they create too.

Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Foursquare and others have trained their Billion users combined in the art of publishing. The pursuit of Comments, Likes and Shares are at the heart of Consumer Publishing, and getting those Likes can sometimes be more important than being truthful.

When it comes to feedback, trying to write a sharable review is at odds with the needs of the business being reviewed. Constructive feedback is great for the business owner, but isn’t all that sharable. Controversial, sensational, emotional, hateful and provocative are better. Combine this with an unhealthy disregard for issues of liable, with Online Ratings and Reviews sites perceived to be a Safe Harbour for the reviewer, and your business can suffer very badly indeed, with little or no recourse.

Yabbit provides a channel for consumers to give feedback that is both discrete and constructive, giving the Business Owner the chance to follow up and diffuse any issues before they become public. By promoting Yabbit you encourage your customers to channel their feedback to you in a constructive way, saving your business from expensive long term brand damage.

It isn’t all about surprise and delight, keeping customers is about getting the basics right

Posted on by Billy Tucker

Today’s customers are more sophisticated than ever, sampling the wares of more brands in more locations than ever before, happy to journey to a café in the suburb next to the next suburb for a cold drip, encouraged to buy from overseas by far flung Friends’ waxings on Facebook and keenly eyeing the swings in their local currency for macroeconomic bargains. This Neo Consumer is older and richer than before too, more thoughtful, more discerning and always ready to Switch.

The Neo Consumer is empowered, in control and they know it.

Informed and empowered Neo Consumers are hard to impress too. Battling for their business is harder than ever, and the dangling of ever-oranger carrots has become an increasingly important part of the game. 3 Hour delivery, 100 day free returns, free international shipping, and super slick omnichannel blah blah have apparently become the battleground. But too much emphasis is lumped on the need to differentiate from the competition with whistles and bells at the expense of profit, and worse still, at the expense of consistent, good service that’s required to keep the hard-to-win Neo Consumer coming back.

With that empowerment also comes a willingness to walk away at the slightest hint their expectation won’t be met. And for the Neo Consumer, switching to a new provedore is easy come easy go. No warnings and no second chances, one slip, and they’re gone.

The pursuit of great service begins and ends with love.

Posted on by Billy Tucker
Service begins with love

Some businesses will never get it, never.

I couldn’t be more passionate about great service, my adult life has been peppered by the pursuit of the perfect service experience, delivering it or it being delivered. So far I’ve found that it’s massively hard to give, and sadly rare to get.

A key milestone in that pursuit happened two weeks ago when Yabbit.com launched, Yabbit is the new feedback platform in partnership with American Express [Amex have made it available free and exclusive for American Express merchants in Australia]. Each day the Yabbit team are talking with businesses about the chance to hear from their customers, directly and one to one-ly about their service experience, the good and the bad, the great and the sad. Awesome, sounds good, they say. But they don’t always mean it. Like, really mean it.

And it struck me.

It’s not about service, it’s about love.

What’s love got to do with it?

Love is – Doing things you don’t have to do, but want to do, just because. Smiling because you can’t help it. A spring in your step. Caring about everything you do. Keeping things fresh and new. Doing what you say you will do. Surprising and delighting. Being spontaneous, early, eager, attentive, gracious, careful, thoughtful, even thankful. Just like great service.

Service isn’t about being fast or efficient, it’s about love. Giving your customers a little slice of you, showing how much they mean to you, and finding a team that will behave the same way, not because they are following a blueprint but because they also love to love. Did you show your customers any love today?

Some businesses will just never get it. Never.