vendor feedback policy

[camcojb]

Originally Posted by compos mentis

So Jody, as of right now, what CAN be said about vendors in threads... besides positive things?

The only guideline I see is no vendor bashing threads.

Thanks.

sites like Camaros.net and Chevelles.com have had no vendor bashing rules forever, and seem to still draw crowds. I wish I could say exactly where we'll draw the line, but that can change depending on the thread, the poster, etc. I'll know it when I see it I guess.............

The thread asking for help on how to get his money back from a vendor is fine. Asking for advice, didn't name the vendor, there is nothing wrong with that. Threads asking if anyone knows how to get hold of ABC vendor is fine. A thread asking for feedback on a vendor is fine, as long as it doesn't get personal and turn into bashing. For example, you could say I had a bad experience with them and would not recommend them. That is not bashing. But to go off cussing, calling them a piece of crap, etc. is.

Pretty much any thread that calls out a vendor by name is going to go south. Most all of you have seen this happen over and over. We want to protect our members. I think Scott has been great at removing vendors that he felt didn't take care of our members. It's never been about the money here, though we've been accused of that in the past.

We're still looking at options, but for now the threads have increased beyond our comfort zone so for now we're just not going to allow them on the forum.

[coolwelder62]

Sometime the customer can be tough to deal with Too.Some customer's will just keep bitchin until you want to give UP.

[Ketzer]

Originally Posted by coolwelder62

Sometime the customer can be tough to deal with Too.Some customer's will just keep bitchin until you want to give UP.

Yup! There's a boatload more ungrateful, disrespectful, a-hole customers than there are bad vendors. Some customers are not going to be happy regardless of what you do.

Jeff-

[daveybtv]

Maybe it could be set up like Ebay, each vendor can be rated on customer service, delivery time, and quality of the product. A short comment limited to 100 characters can be left to described the transaction, then other member can review each vendor and choose whom they would like to do business with based on other members reviews.

[carbuff]

As someone that started one of these threads a while back about a negative vendor experience, I have a thought. Perhaps instead of having a policy like this which is going to be difficult, and subjective, to enforce, why don't you have a policy instead that prevents the "piling on" that many people do? That doesn't mean that the thread has to be locked necessarily to prevent the piling on, but as moderators you can be proactive as to stopping it.

If people cannot post their experiences for fear of being blocked of banned from the site, or even just 'called out', then I fear that we lose the ability to share those experiences to educate future shoppers.

Personally, I wish I had seen more threads about vendors in the past, for some reason I only recall seeing those for the last year, perhaps 2. Perhaps the problems only started more recently such that there wasn't as much to report before that. Whatever the reason, it seems to be a more recent phenomena.

My vote, if I'm allowed one , would be to allow the forum users to share their experiences, but to put a policy in place where the experience need to be fact based. Then warn people (and have as part of the policy) that piling on is strictly prohibited. If someone has an experience they feel the need to share, they should start their own thread that must abide by the same policy. I usually don't feel that the initial post in these threads is so bad, but the follow on is where they tend to go downhill quickly...

Could some variation of that idea work?

[cluxford]

Big businesses are using a method called Net Promoter Score or NPS lots of stuff out there on the web about it. I use it with many of my clients as the customer experience is becoming a massive differentiator and profit generator when many companies sell the same thing or near enough to it

NPS basically asks "would you recommend x company to friends or family" you score out of 0 to 10. 10 being absolutely without question. 0 being not a snowflakes chance in hell. NPS is then a formula that says


How to Calculate Your Score

NPS is based on the fundamental perspective that every company's customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. By asking one simple question — How likely is it that you would recommend [Company X] to a friend or colleague? — you can track these groups and get a clear measure of your company's performance through its customers' eyes. Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point rating scale and are categorized as follows:

Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.
To calculate your company's Net Promoter Score (NPS), take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are Detractors.


NPS is % of promoters minus % of detractors

You'd be surprised how many companies have a negative NPS

This would be an easy exercise for us to set up on here. Set up a vendor NPS section and simply allow people to select a score from 0 to 10. To prevent abuse maybe limit people to 3 scores per vendor. Such they can score multiple transactions or if they want to do more than 3 due to more transactions they have to PM a mod to get permission

Now this is simply a rating system but allows 3 categories of feedback that can be equally compared across vendors

The follow on question which could be optional is "why". That is why did you score the way you scored. And maybe this needs mod vetting before it's published to prevent bashing...your call

But I think as a simple start an NPS approach is a simple but effective rating system that could be easily implemented he

[Beegs]

Originally Posted by camcojb

We're still looking at options, but for now the threads have increased beyond our comfort zone so for now we're just not going to allow them on the forum.

Bingo!

[nacnac]

My thread about Air Ride's customer service was closed because the administrator needs to verify my story? I said I'm unhappy, that makes it true. My thread was about MY situation. Protecting vendors isn't going to make any of them more accountable for their business practices, good or bad. Censoring any of this is wrong. We can read anyones rants or raves and make up our mind about what we believe.

[camcojb]

Originally Posted by nacnac

My thread about Air Ride's customer service was closed because the administrator needs to verify my story? I said I'm unhappy, that makes it true. My thread was about MY situation. Protecting vendors isn't going to make any of them more accountable for their business practices, good or bad. Censoring any of this is wrong. We can read anyones rants or raves and make up our mind about what we believe.

If I was censoring it I would have removed the thread. The info is still there for all to read, just wanted to stop posts until I could get hold of the company and see if I could get this fixed for you. That is the main goal isn't it? It was not about verifying your story.

I re-opened the thread for now.

[Cread01]

I guess for me I just don't understand why this is such a big deal at all.

If a customer is not happy with service from a company then they are not happy. I as a customer want to have a drama free experience. I understand that the story is one sided sometimes but I think that alot of times you can see from the story who's at fault. If you can't hear the story of experiences you can't really make a decision for yourself. I have personally purchased products from site sponsors even after hearing bad stories because I have heard enough good things that I can understand a bad experience or two. I just feel that every company is going to have good and bad experiences with customers. How they make up for the bad is important. If you only hear posative things and are only allowed to say posative things you know that you can't really make a good decision on who to go with. It also takes away from the really good vendors who have very little bad to say about them because people know they are only hearing the good.

what is wrong with having a thread telling about a bad experience? if you don't want to read it and don't want the drama then stay out of it but for me it takes away from an educated decision on who to go with for things all the way around.