4 ms·

Show HN: I built an app that helps amplify the voice of the customer

23 points by boina92 6y ago

the__alchemist 6y ago
I love the idea! (Admittedly without knowing the details of how it works, or the complications that may arise) It feels like in many cases, you're reliant on the company having a good channel for addressing concerns (Some do, some don't). Reviews aren't necessarily a good fit, yet customers may go straight there, for want of something better. Do you think the chance of abuse is high? (Eg a competitor posing as an unsatisfied customer, or a customer abusing it trying to get free things) What mitigation plans do you have for this, if you think it could come up?
- boina92 6y ago
  Those are really good points. > It feels like in many cases, you're reliant on the company having a good channel for addressing concerns (Some do, some don't). Reviews aren't necessarily a good fit, yet customers may go straight there, for want of something better. That is true and even more so having a social media presence in our case. Our approach is to focus on companies that already have a social media presence and propose an alternative way to track customer satisfaction and reduce the subjectivity baked into that metric by relying on the facts and measuring customer service quality instead. We still provide users with a space to express their feelings as they would on review sites and receive support from other users in similar situations, while we work with companies to get better at serving their customers. > Do you think the chance of abuse is high? (Eg a competitor posing as an unsatisfied customer, or a customer abusing it trying to get free things) What mitigation plans do you have for this, if you think it could come up? Moderation is key for any platform like ours, because our user community is placing an enormous amount of trust in us to ensure that we’re helping genuine users like themselves, which means letting through genuine complaints on our platform and bringing down abusive complaints where we have compelling evidence. We have processes in place for complaint moderation today, and as we scale, we will automate more of these processes where needed.
saagarjha 6y ago
The obvious way I can see this making money is allowing companies to come in and pay for problematic reports to go away–is this how this will be funded?
- hellotomyrars 6y ago
  Or the exact reverse. Customer pays a small-dollar figure to ensure they get a more meaningful support response. Either way an idea I'm not a huge fan of.
  - mrkramer 6y ago
    I'm against that business model better one would be charging companies not users and in that sense all customers should be treated equally, only customers that maybe should have priority are business users.
  - maximp 6y ago
    That was what came to mind as well. We have a landscape where customers with the largest social media following/ore persistence are more likely to reach customer support - a system that -should- be serving everyone equally well. Rather than trying to improve customer support, this product strikes me as allowing users to buy influence and get a response - at the expense of customers who aren't willing or able to pay.
- mrkramer 6y ago
  No that would be wrong, good business model would be to create a specialized platform to resolve customers' issues fast and easy and charge companies for the access to that specialized service. I had a similar idea like this one but unlike this platform I didn't want to do it publicly but privately. Advantage of doing this publicly is that you can create sort of question-and-answer site where users can search for specific complaint they have or find similar one.
- dewiz 6y ago
  another way to make money, is for company X to pay to have a "grace period", e.g. 24 hours to address the issue before the amplification starts.
verticalflight 6y ago
"And immediately my issue was eventually resolved." - from their testimonial.
- surround 6y ago
  “eventually my issue was immediately resolved” /nitpick
  - dewiz 6y ago
    even that way, the sentence doesn't make any sense, it's either eventually or immediately /nitnit
throwaway13337 6y ago
Rating and social media systems give the strongest voice to your worst customers. I run a few SaaS apps and by far the majority of my time spent in support is dealing with unreasonable customers. In the past, SaaS apps used to be able to ignore them but now they hold your company hostage with threat of bad reviews. It's true that these systems could be used for good - letting other users know about issues with a product. In my experience, it's not how they're being used in practice. These people want special treatment and they get it - from me, and from everyone else. It's really not fair to my other customers. I'd love to refund these unreasonable people entirely and send them on their way. I don't want their business. But the damage is just too great for refusal of service. One 1-star review is as powerful as ten 5-star reviews. I'd like to see a rating and social media system that tracks the average rating of these customers across platforms. I'm sure it's overall negative for those on the attack. These often verbally abusive, entitled customers are a real problem. They increase the cost for those not willing to be as pushy/loud/abusive. Giving them an even stronger voice is not a step forward.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  > I'd like to see a rating and social media system that tracks the average rating of these customers across platforms. How much would you pay for such an analytics and customer grading system?
  - throwaway13337 6y ago
    Since refusing these customers would results in the same, nothing. But it would be nice that attached to that rating was a rating of the customer "this person gives an average of 1.5 stars" on the platform. And maybe weigh that rating as such.
- dewiz 6y ago
  did you consider using a public support forum to promote transparency? your helping customers would be visible, and unreasonable asks would be there too, for everyone to see if you did your best
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dgellow 6y ago
Twitter mob as a service?
- eplanit 6y ago
  It might create so much more noise that people would find Twitter even more annoying and less useful, and thus help its demise. That'd be a positive result.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    You underestimate how much annoyingness and uselessness people will tolerate, for the goal of being distracted. It is arguably a feature! (Tongue in cheek!)
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  "Democratizing Astroturfing"
brody_hamer 6y ago
This type of brigading is pretty clearly against twitters terms.

23 points by boina92 6y ago

I love the idea! (Admittedly without knowing the details of how it works, or the complications that may arise) It feels like in many cases, you're reliant on the company having a good channel for addressing concerns (Some do, some don't). Reviews aren't necessarily a good fit, yet customers may go straight there, for want of something better. Do you think the chance of abuse is high? (Eg a competitor posing as an unsatisfied customer, or a customer abusing it trying to get free things) What mitigation plans do you have for this, if you think it could come up?

boina92 6y ago
Those are really good points. > It feels like in many cases, you're reliant on the company having a good channel for addressing concerns (Some do, some don't). Reviews aren't necessarily a good fit, yet customers may go straight there, for want of something better. That is true and even more so having a social media presence in our case. Our approach is to focus on companies that already have a social media presence and propose an alternative way to track customer satisfaction and reduce the subjectivity baked into that metric by relying on the facts and measuring customer service quality instead. We still provide users with a space to express their feelings as they would on review sites and receive support from other users in similar situations, while we work with companies to get better at serving their customers. > Do you think the chance of abuse is high? (Eg a competitor posing as an unsatisfied customer, or a customer abusing it trying to get free things) What mitigation plans do you have for this, if you think it could come up? Moderation is key for any platform like ours, because our user community is placing an enormous amount of trust in us to ensure that we’re helping genuine users like themselves, which means letting through genuine complaints on our platform and bringing down abusive complaints where we have compelling evidence. We have processes in place for complaint moderation today, and as we scale, we will automate more of these processes where needed.

saagarjha 6y ago

The obvious way I can see this making money is allowing companies to come in and pay for problematic reports to go away–is this how this will be funded?

hellotomyrars 6y ago
Or the exact reverse. Customer pays a small-dollar figure to ensure they get a more meaningful support response. Either way an idea I'm not a huge fan of.
- mrkramer 6y ago
  I'm against that business model better one would be charging companies not users and in that sense all customers should be treated equally, only customers that maybe should have priority are business users.
- maximp 6y ago
  That was what came to mind as well. We have a landscape where customers with the largest social media following/ore persistence are more likely to reach customer support - a system that -should- be serving everyone equally well. Rather than trying to improve customer support, this product strikes me as allowing users to buy influence and get a response - at the expense of customers who aren't willing or able to pay.
mrkramer 6y ago
No that would be wrong, good business model would be to create a specialized platform to resolve customers' issues fast and easy and charge companies for the access to that specialized service. I had a similar idea like this one but unlike this platform I didn't want to do it publicly but privately. Advantage of doing this publicly is that you can create sort of question-and-answer site where users can search for specific complaint they have or find similar one.
dewiz 6y ago
another way to make money, is for company X to pay to have a "grace period", e.g. 24 hours to address the issue before the amplification starts.

verticalflight 6y ago

"And immediately my issue was eventually resolved." - from their testimonial.

surround 6y ago
“eventually my issue was immediately resolved” /nitpick
- dewiz 6y ago
  even that way, the sentence doesn't make any sense, it's either eventually or immediately /nitnit

throwaway13337 6y ago

Rating and social media systems give the strongest voice to your worst customers. I run a few SaaS apps and by far the majority of my time spent in support is dealing with unreasonable customers. In the past, SaaS apps used to be able to ignore them but now they hold your company hostage with threat of bad reviews. It's true that these systems could be used for good - letting other users know about issues with a product. In my experience, it's not how they're being used in practice. These people want special treatment and they get it - from me, and from everyone else. It's really not fair to my other customers. I'd love to refund these unreasonable people entirely and send them on their way. I don't want their business. But the damage is just too great for refusal of service. One 1-star review is as powerful as ten 5-star reviews. I'd like to see a rating and social media system that tracks the average rating of these customers across platforms. I'm sure it's overall negative for those on the attack. These often verbally abusive, entitled customers are a real problem. They increase the cost for those not willing to be as pushy/loud/abusive. Giving them an even stronger voice is not a step forward.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
> I'd like to see a rating and social media system that tracks the average rating of these customers across platforms. How much would you pay for such an analytics and customer grading system?
- throwaway13337 6y ago
  Since refusing these customers would results in the same, nothing. But it would be nice that attached to that rating was a rating of the customer "this person gives an average of 1.5 stars" on the platform. And maybe weigh that rating as such.
dewiz 6y ago
did you consider using a public support forum to promote transparency? your helping customers would be visible, and unreasonable asks would be there too, for everyone to see if you did your best

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dgellow 6y ago

Twitter mob as a service?

eplanit 6y ago
It might create so much more noise that people would find Twitter even more annoying and less useful, and thus help its demise. That'd be a positive result.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  You underestimate how much annoyingness and uselessness people will tolerate, for the goal of being distracted. It is arguably a feature! (Tongue in cheek!)
quickthrower2 6y ago
"Democratizing Astroturfing"

brody_hamer 6y ago

This type of brigading is pretty clearly against twitters terms.