‘Google’ a company name and customer service and you will get a good view of their customers’ experiences - especially if it is poor. Customers can also use ‘word of mouth’ sites to discuss and review experiences eg epinions, tripadvisor, and ciao!. These can all be helpful to potential customers, but the downside is that reviews may not be genuine - trolls and vested interests are not always apparent - and ‘one mans meat, can definately be another mans poison’ - in other words are the customers ‘like you’.

On very few of these occasions does the company have a means of reply (Tripadvisor does), and of course any good conversation is two way; and thus more valuable. Which is why I am interested in the development of Plebble, a site for rating the service and value for money for any organization from The Labour Party to your local butcher. With the added advantage that the company has the ‘right of reply’. The reply being posted on site, and the reviewer being notified by Plebble.

The idea is to get companies and customers talking. For customers they can see both how the company is rated, but also how it deals with complaints and compliments. For the company they get customer feedback, a benchmark of how they do against other companies, and the right to respond, so demonstrating their ‘customer care’.

A good initiative I will be following, and using, with interest.