Intercept Bad Reviews Before Broadcasted Online

Have you ever had an experience at a business establishment where you wished you could voice your concerns to the manager but not in a confrontational kind of way?

TalkToTheManager might just have the answer!

While listening to The Social Hour podcast, TalkToTheManager was featured as an interesting service to check out. It is described as a way for customers to give anonymous feedback/comments to business owners/managers via text message. The business owners then have the ability to respond in order to address customer service, product, and facility issues before a bad experience becomes a bad online review.

Benefits for the businesses include:

• Managers’ personal cell phone numbers stay private
• Discover issues you didn’t know existed
• Turn off messages temporarily whenever you like
• Comments and responses can go to multiple managers

This service is intended to intercept a bad review before it is broadcasted online. I think this concept could actually work too. People want to be heard and this may provide the instant acknowledgement and response that is desired by customers. The goal is, if handled appropriately, the review that is eventually posted online turns out to be portrayed in a more positive light.

For me, it doesn’t have to be just about bad service either. I am more than happy to share a positive experience with a manager as well.

How could your business make use of this service?

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Image credit: Johan Larsson

John Mayer Calls for a Digital Cleanse to Bring in the New Year

When was the last time you corresponded via a personalized letter? Remember when you actually had to pick up the phone and call someone? With texting, Twitter, Facebook and e-mail replacing everyday communication, the New Year may be a time to take a step back from all of today's technology and remember that you can't always express yourself in 140 characters.

Yesterday, John Mayer urged his Twitter followers to take part in a New Year's Digital Cleanse in an effort to "defrag" our technologically overloaded minds. Mayer suggests a one-week cleanse, beginning January 1st and ending on January 8th, which doesn't require you to completely remove technology from your life, only take a step back. Here's the recipe:

• email only from laptop or desktop computers.

• cell phones can only be used to make calls, and no text messages or e-mails are allowed – if you receive a text, you must reply in voice over the phone.
  

• no use of Twitter or any other social networking site – including reading as well as posting.

• no visiting of any entertainment or gossip sites.

Following these guidelines should be manageable for even the most connected individuals. Work commitments may prevent you from participating in the cleanse, but it is still refreshing to think about how far communication has come, even just over the last year.