When I hear the terms "after-sale service" or "Customer Relationship Management", I generally think of someone sitting in an office that no one can seem to find, with a telephone number that is constantly engaged. Too often do companies take your money and forget all about you the second you walk out their doors and, should you have any form of a complaint, it generally gets lost in an endless stream of emails and red tape. This leaves you feeling even more unappreciated by the very people who took your hard earned cash in the first place. The result of this is naturally a lot of unsatisfied customers posting their comments out on the World Wide Web for everyone to see.
Fortunately, companies are catching on to this trend in online activity and websites like Get Satisfaction are offering a platform for companies to hear the voice of their customers.
Get Satisfaction allows companies or customers to set up a public forum on the site where customers can post questions regarding the company or it's products, problems they may have encountered or praise for the company. The site is very easy to navigate which is great as it adds simplicity to the process of posting feedback as opposed to conventional methods of giving feedback to a company. These posts can be grouped into various topics and are all saved and searchable, so there is virtually no question left unanswered.
Another feature on the website is the option to provide new ideas for the company regarding their campaigns or products.
This is a great way to share your opinions and ideas on how to improve certain issues within the company. Once you have posted your idea, other users can comment on it and if any employees of that particular company are registered on the page, they can even provide direct feedback on the ideas.
However, Get Satisfaction isn't just limited to one site. They have integrated Social Media networks such as Facebook and Twitter to their site so that companies can build their own viral communities and ensure that they are able to hear all comments and feedback made by their customers.
A nice little addition to the website's offering is the mobile application. Get Satisfaction is available through a free application for all iPhone users. The application was developed by David Cann and allows users to search for, read, start, reply or comment on topics as well as upload photos.
It is encouraging to see that companies are making headway in Customer Relationship Management and one can only hope that the opinions of customers are being taken seriously in a continuous effort to close the gap between companies and their customers.
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