Five-star reviews are great for business, but there's no way to stop angry Yelpers from publishing bad ones. Until now.
Skweal is a feedback platform designed to help brick-and-mortar retailers resolve issues privately, before a customer does any damage online. The idea is to get people to visit skweal.com on their smartphones, locate the business from a list and submit a comment or complaint through Skweal's feedback form. Skweal employees take it from there, passing the message as quickly as possible to the right person. Early Skwealers have benefited. One wrote, "The Internet isn't working in my room, and I'm thinking about changing hotels." That led to--true story--a fix within half an hour, plus a champagne-and-fruit-basket apology.
"It takes 30 seconds or less, and customers don't need to register or sign up," says Skweal founder Tyler Crowley, a former executive at Mahalo.com and a producer at Open Angel Forum. He's campaigning to get more business owners to share their best contact information, and to encourage their customers to provide feedback through Skweal.
In fact, Crowley says the only reason people complain publicly about the local dry cleaner or café is because there's no convenient alternative.
"Virtually all one-star reviewers I interviewed said they would have preferred to speak directly to someone when the problem was happening," he says. "But nobody has time to be stuck in a phone tree, dig for a customer service e-mail or fill out an impersonal comment card."
If Skweal takes off--and plenty of investors think it will--business owners can get real-time feedback, win customer service points and nip complaints in the bud. And not a moment too soon, since asking for the manager is so 20th century.
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This article was originally published in the March 2011 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: How to Clean Up Your Online Reputation.
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Comments:
Monitoring what people are saying about your brand online.
Takes complaints out of the public forum, giving businesses a chance to make good.
Very good point Annie, however businesses don't like reward negative behavior online for fear of encouraging others to do the same, so if getting resolution is the objective the business is prone to be far more accommodating offline, especially as the threat of going online is always there.
Are people who complain online always seeking a resolution? I wonder if what motivates people to complain on sites like Trip Advisor is at least in part about providing a service to the community by warning people off a bad venue. For those who are actually seeking a refund or some other action on the part of the company, complaining online shifts the power balance towards the consumer. For better or worse, complainers are aware of that and play it to their advantage.
It will be interesting to see what the uptake is like for this service, and how it fares in comparison with sites like Get Satisfaction...
Aaron, Before iTunes it was very hard to stop people from downloading mp3s, but if you give people an easy way to do something generally they'll do the right thing. Currently the easiest ways to complain are online, however people just want their problems addressed, so like iTunes did for mp3s, we built something even easier which happens to be private.
Ronn, Indeed businesses should provide their customers with a comments/blog area. I also think the comment system should be optimized for mobile devices, provide powerful analytics, customizable templates, group routing, and SMS forwarding, which is why we built Skweal.
Anton, Skweal isn't an alternative to calling the front desk, it's an alternative to leaving a negative review on trip advisor after a bad stay.
Yahia, Skweal is a solution for businesses to extend to their customers. I understand your confusion as customers are used to having everything built for them. Skweal is different, it is a digital suggestion box system built specifically for the business. It provides the same value to businesses independent of how many people know about.
Very cool concept. Seems like an ideal fit for small business owners, who really do need an open line of communication with customers but may not have the time or interest to hang out on other services all day and wait for them to post comments.
Good for the businesses, but how many customers know about skweal? I just learnd about it from you. And does it work everywhere or there is geographical limits? Taylor needs to work on getting the word out more about skweal to customers more than businesses.
Good idea, but if I'm at a hotel and need internet, why am I going to use Skweal when I can go downstairs or call the front desk and get it fixed? I stay in Vegas hotels for business and have to get the manager involved once in awhile for business purposes or issues. Much faster. Skweal is a middle man that is probably only for people not brave enough to complain in person or on the phone. Again, good idea but I wouldn't use it.
I can't believe Jason Calcanis let him go with this domain name. Terrible - but I give Tyler a 8 on the idea and 9 on the pitch.
Interesting idea...but i think Yelpers are people who habitually go online and like to slander businesses. That's my experience having run a reputation management and reputation defender company thereviewbuster.com Instead of using skyweal, i think businesses should provide their customers with a comments/blog area where they can solve things between themselves.
Perhaps BP or Kenneth Cole would have wanted something like this before it's too late...but this is something new. Still, it's hard to put a lid on bad word on the Web; it's like some rotten apple that can affect the rest and all one can do is type your name in Google. Sad that people don't realize that what they post online is something like a giant billboard for the rest of the world to see. It's a matter of personal choice then if you'll believe what you read or not.
Interesting concept...I like it though
This is actually a great idea! This won't hurt the businesses and will help the customers faster. I think I should get this one and encourage my customers to send complaints in this app.
I like the idea of being able to privately settle disputes with unhappy customers instead of having them run to Yelp and try to publicly humiliate / harm a business instead. This is a great service that brick and mortar businesses should champion.
Skweal sounds like a more effective secret shopper service that every customer can use.
An easy direct line to the manager? Skweal is a great idea.
This is a great solution for the brick and mortar shops to stay on top of their customers and take control of experiences. Too often I hear someone telling me not to shop somewhere because of an experience in customer support, wouldn't they love to handle that before it gets out of hand. BTW Don't shop at BestBuy. Ugh.
Skweal is instant satisfaction. Really put the power in the hands of the customer, at the same time keeping it honest of direct communication to those who care.
Full support to Skweal! The gentle disruption at its best.
Can't wait to actually use it and get an instant response from managers at some of the places that I've been!
I agree. Skweal is an awesome idea and a win win for businesses and consumers. Too much fighting in public and smearing these days. Just report your issues and get right to the manager and get the resolved. No one wants to be those loud people fighting in public right? Skweal takes it all behind the scenes to get you what you want.
This is a great idea - leaves the Ego out of it and let's you cut right to the chase and sort things out with the owner/manager. I would much rather give them a chance to set things right and toss me a coupon or something, as opposed to just bitching online with the hopes of pissing off the owner...