Hey all, quick question for you here. I’m planning to develop a local business site, and in an effort to make it stand out from the crowd would like to offer the ability for visitors to rate businesses that they’ve been to - much like reviewers on Amazon can rate books.
As a consumer I’m sure most of us would love the ability to do that, but how would you feel as a business owner if people had the opportunity to post comments about you? Personally, I’d love to see the positive comments people had to say…but I’d be scared of some looney-tune posting negative comments that weren’t true and could harm my reputation. I think a site offering consumer reviews of businesses would draw lots of repeat visitors, but I’m not so sure the businesses I want to target would love the idea.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts and comments with me! Thanks!
You will definatly need some form of checks and balances installed: user registration, etc. and give the businesses a chance to respond and clear their names.
It might also fall under the auspices of the FCRA and it’s related credit laws, as a negative review/comment could affect the credit of the business owner.
Also, what would prevent a biz’s competitor from flooding his competitors with bad reviews?
Hey guys…thanks for your thoughts on this. I guess the only way I’m going to find out what businesses and visitors will like, is to get things going and test it out! Hmmmm…maybe sending out a survey beforehand would be an ever better way to get the word out about the directory and find out what business owners think too!
I wouldn’t think it’s too different from running a Forum like Sitepoint…where people post their good and bad opinions about many things including other companies products and services.
As long as the “terms of use” are clearly spelled out for visitors, and businesses that are listed know what to expect and agree to not hold me liable for anything negative said about them, I think I’ll be ok. But as with most things…something I should run by a lawyer first!
If you’re considering ratings or comments, I’d go with comments. My Celica site used to have ratings, and it wasn’t an accurate indicator of how nice a car actually was, even though the only cars with three or more votes were ordered by rating. I kept on getting complaints, and seeing first hand, that the ratings didn’t actually reflect how nice a car was, so I gave up that system and went to a system where registered users can add comments about cars. This system is much nicer in my opinion and gives the car owner more info about what people do or don’t like about their car and who says what about their car.
For a local business directory, I would go against ratings and/or comments unless you have a system in place to justify these. Instead I would provide a link to the local Better Business Bureau so people woulc make their complaints or comments and the businesses could respond.
Coomer - Thanks for your comments, and Kudos on the nice Celica site you have there! Did you develop that yourself, and are you using PHP/MySql? I’m curious because I’m using a Perl script for Christian Owned and I’d love to use PHP and MySql. Thanks for any advice you can give me!
Wayne - Thanks for your thoughts on this too! While the BBB is good for reporting really bad experiences, I’d like to offer a means for testimonials to be posted to help promote the businesses listed in my directory. I don’t know…maybe I should just solicit people to email testimonials to me to include with the business listing?? It’s a tough call, because while I don’t want to censor people’s comments…I want it to be a positive thing for the businesses listed. Ahhh…decisions, decisions…
Nice post! Thanks for all your comments. I learned something new today. I also go on different local business directory sites and it’s really important that consumers get the information they need but not too much information because still, we have to protect the privacy of the companies.
It is a great idea actually to let customers rate or leave feedbacks to businesses. But make sure that it is well moderated especially the negative comments. It will not be a good idea anymore.
