April 9, 2008

Extending the Conversation on Get Satisfaction

Walk into a room with eight people having a conversation, and you’re bound to notice a number of extra details — the mood of the room, for example. We’re trying to capture these kinds of details and display them on Get Satisfaction so everyone can see what’s happening around the discussion. This week, we made new strides on this front by releasing a new version of the topic page.

The topic page is where all the conversation happens, and this new one has a number of notable improvements:

Sharing: Know any helpful people? We’re betting you do, so we’ve made it easier to share topics, either by sending an e-mail to someone about the topic, or by sharing it through other social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Digg. This is a great way for both users of our site and employees to quickly share a topic with colleagues or friends — or anyone who might be able to contribute to the conversation.

Status: You can now see when a topic has been “answered” or “solved.” Both users and companies can indicate when they think this has happened, and the status sits at the top of the page. It’s a great way to get a feel for what’s already happened (and what to expect for the future of the conversation) when you land on a topic page.

Best answers: We’ve taken away the ability to mark a reply someone has made as “useful.” Instead, we’re letting people indicate which replies they think are the best, and those “best answers” get pushed to the top of the page. It’s a lightweight ranking system that also serves to put the most popular solution right under the problem being discussed. Not everyone will agree on the “best answer” to a particular question, but this is a great way to find the answer that seems to work for most people, while still allowing for disagreement on the finer details.

Mood: One of our favorite aspects of Get Satisfaction is emotion. We love emoting. Now, when you see a topic page, you’ll see the mood of the room displayed as a bar chart made up of the emoticon-like faces you’ve grown accustomed to. It’s a fun aspect of Get Satisfaction that we’ve extended to help gauge the mood of the room. We’re into fun.

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Comments: In any group conversation, you hear a lot of one-liners, asides, and remarks about things other people say. These short snippets of conversation are generally aimed at one person, and they’re often not intended to be given the same weight as a formal reply. To capture that aspect of group conversation, we’ve added comments. These are short text responses you can use to indicate encouragement, praise, criticism — or plain old hooting and hollering. Again, this is a way to add emotion, but without using emoticons.

Beyond all of this, there are a number of smaller changes that you may or may not notice, depending on how much time you have already spent browsing Get Satisfaction. The layout is much clearer and easier to read based on a lot of design work from our crack team. We’ve added some new stats so you can see how many people are participating and what they think of the ideas being discussed. The list goes on, but you can see how it all works by visiting this conversation on Get Satisfaction.

While you’re there, tell us what you think.

By Eric Suesz | Posted in Satisfaction, appearances, community, design, development | Comments (1)
March 30, 2008

MyStarbucksIdea.com: A Half-Full Idea

The big news this past week in Web 2.0 world: Starbucks dipped its toe into the pool where community and customers converge.

They launched a new Web site, MyStarbucksIdea. It’s essentially a Dell IdeaStorm clone designed to get feedback from customers. Give us your ideas on how to improve Starbucks, they say. Sounds fairly straightfoward, but there is monumental disagreement as to whether this idea is good, bad, or somewhere in between.

Is it merely a virtual suggestion box with voting? That’s the take of many people on Jim Romenesko’s StarbuckGossip.com, a site that’s always been critical of the company. “MyStarbucksIdea.com was clearly inspired by my site, which was created nearly four years ago to move barista/customer conversations to the Web,” Romenesko tells the Seattle Times. “My site will continue to thrive because it’s an authentic reflection of how customers and employees feel about the company. MyStarbucksIdea.com, on the other hand, is clearly a corporate propaganda site.”

He’s right about one thing. It’s missing the big detail that marks a true community: authenticity.

The way I see it, the site looks like a collection of possible improvements their marketing department already knew their customers wanted. Give us free Wi-Fi. Stop selling those warmed-over breakfast sandwiches and start serving something healthy like fruit. Give me a free cup of coffee on my birthday. I bet they’ve heard nearly all of these ideas before. I can’t help but imagine their marketing department sitting in a massive room scribbling out a giant flow-chart bracket on a whiteboard — their own version of March Madness.

But, it may be unduly harsh to call it propaganda. Yes, it’s censored and filtered, and yes, it’s wearing a grass-roots disguise, but it is doing one thing right: involving customers in conversations about Starbucks’ products. Whether you love or hate Starbucks, I think they deserve some credit for this relatively bold step. They need to lose their impulse to control the conversation if they want to be seen as legitimately caring about what their customers have to say, but it is a step in the right direction.

I’m betting that Starbuck’s new foray into customer feedback is an idea that nearly every media-savvy Forbes 500 executive will be pondering this week. If this idea gets co-opted and adopted by others, here’s hoping they get the other half right — the true community involvement — and not just ladle in an extra helping of marketing.

Starbucks is on Get Satisfaction.]

By Eric Suesz | Posted in Branding, community, customer service, reputation | Comments (8)
March 17, 2008

SXSW: 10 Texas-Sized Memories

1. Worst Website Ever: Wired wrote about the Worst Website Ever contest, which we participated in. Although he didn’t win (almost!), Lane’s idea about over-the-top shopping experiences in virtual worlds was pretty damn funny.

2. Judo Moves: Thor gave a spirited talk on how to deal with people who try to impugn your reputation online. It had some examples plucked right from the previous day’s headlines, including a hilarious song consisting entirely of lyrics culled from angry blog comments.

3. Taking It with You: Leslie joined a packed room to talk about taking your log-in information with you as you jump from social network to social network. The “Building Portable Social Networks” panel provoked a lot of discussion about OAuth, OpenID, and related topics. The response it received from the audience really made me think that these new strategies are moving forward, and quickly. Awesome.

4. Moblogging SXSW: Welcome to a panel on using tools like Twitter and Utterz to publish words, audio, and video in real-time. But, don’t bother sitting down. We’re all going to head outside and use these tools to interview people and come back in half an hour and see what we all sent to the Internet. Fabulous idea, and one that lives up to the “interactive” label that SXSW promises. There should be more workshop-like panels like this one.

5. The Sauce: The enchiladas verdes at Las Manitas. Tomatillos done right.

6. Twittering On: Twitter proved to be just as invaluable, influential, and fun as it was last year. Good. That’s what we all had hoped and expected. By all accounts, SXSW got much bigger this year, and the parties that go along with that growth didn’t always scale, as anyone waiting in line for an hour to get into a party can attest. In a way, Twitter helped fill that gap by moving all the people who couldn’t fit into the bigger venues into smaller ones. Thanks, Twitter, for being a crowd-caller when you need to draw a crowd — or leave a big crowd for a more intimate one.

7. Big Party: The big 16-bit party we co-sponsored was covered by Yahoo’s TechTicker. Skip forward to 3:50 in the video to see Lane interviewed by Sarah Lacy. My favorite part: Lacey asks, “Do you think people get too old for SXSW?” Lane: “I don’t because I’m delusional.” That’s the spirit.

7. RVIP Lounge: A recreational vehicle that scoots you away from the downtown crowds and into a rolling karaoke partyland? Why, yes, I would like to ride on that bus. Thanks, Jonathan Grubb, of RubyRed Labs, for creating the one thing we didn’t know we needed. Delightful. Also seen on the LA Times Web Scout blog.

9. Lone Star state: Lone Star: the perfect watery, domestic choice when you’re just not sure how long the party might go on.

10. Tacos Supremely Successful: Get Satisfaction hosted an informal Meetup about what we’re up to and where we’re going. We’re happy to report that all of the breakfast tacos were scrumptious. Thanks to everyone who joined us. I’ve already noticed a few of those new faces signing up their companies on Get Satisfaction. Right on! If you’ve got any questions about getting started with us, I’m here to help answer them.

All in all, it was a stellar SXSW. New faces at SXSW = more people to learn from. Old friends at SXSW = more ways to find unofficial meet-ups. Thanks to everyone who met us, promoted us, befriended us, or otherwise shouted out to us.

By Eric Suesz | Posted in SXSW, Satisfaction, community, conferences, reputation, tacos | Comments (0)
March 9, 2008

The Kindness of Strangers

“Apparently, ‘kindness’ is a requirement for using Get Satisfaction.”

So retorted someone on Get Satisfaction this week, as he accused us of censoring him. We hadn’t censored him (he’s still here!), but we did kindly encourage him to engage with a company rep who had been reaching out to him directly, instead of simply jumping into conversations to complain and then jumping out again; and again; and again.

This Get Satisfaction user is a long-time critic of the company. In fact, when you look at their Get Satisfaction dashboard (which highlights their activity), it’s pretty much a long (very long) string of criticism and complaints about the company, with no participation in any other sections of Get Satisfaction. This person holds a singular and distinguished record in our system: 0 topics started, but hundreds of replies to other people’s topics — nearly all of them angry — and all of them about that one hated company. It makes you wonder if this person is actually a customer of the company. Who would continue to pay for a service they hate that much?

There are a lot of disgruntled people like this on the Internet. Some of them obviously relish the mask of anonymity they can adopt in online places. It allows them to engage with people in an unabashedly negative way. They’re the flamers and haters and stokers of emotion. The reason they do these things isn’t really knowable (and probably isn’t all that fascinating if you were to dig down into it), but they can really kill a conversation. Just like in real life.

But where is the line they cross that makes them a troll? And, is it reasonable to expect everyone to play nice on Get Satisfaction?

This anonymously angry poster sparked a discussion this week in that vein, both on the Get Satisfaction site and in the Get Satisfaction office. We have a public set of community guidelines for dealing with spammers and trolls, but the subject always provokes discussion. It turned into a week of pondering how to keep everyone striving toward productive solutions to their problems, while avoiding the use of that tricky sword with the sharp handle: censorship.

Our conclusion (and this is no bolt of lightning from the heavens) is that it’s really all about context. You don’t sing your favorite song out loud while you’re in the library. You respect the value you get out of that place. You accept that you have to be quiet and mindful in that setting. The trade-off — knowledge, information, entertainment, in exchange for polite, quiet behavior — is worth it. If it’s not, you probably don’t go to the library.

We want to be known as a place where people work toward being productive, where everyone participates in finding innovative ways to turn negatives around. We certainly don’t mandate kindness on Get Satisfaction, but we also don’t want to be known as a place where people simply complain. (There are a lot of those kind of sites out there already.) To shape conversation toward that kind of outcome, we do sometimes have to encourage people to be less outwardly confrontational. We don’t want to overreach on this point and end up being overly touchy-feely in our language and attitude. We’re not trying to recreate Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood over here. But we are trying to get things done, for both customers and companies.

Dealing with trolls — and deciding what makes a troll — is an ongoing process at Get Satisfaction, and we’d love to hear what you think about it. If you can spot ‘em a mile away and want to share your thoughts about trolls, join us at our SXSW Meetup this Tuesday for our 1:30-2:15 p.m. session, “The Secrets of Managing Customer Communities.”

PureVolume Ranch

323 E. 2nd Street

Austin, Texas 78701

Map it

Help us shape the discussion by bringing your troll experiences to the table. But, please: no stink bombs or bullhorns.

By Eric Suesz | Posted in SXSW, Satisfaction, community, customer service, reputation | Comments (2)
March 3, 2008

Tuesday = Tacos

Attention taco lovers: Tuesday is your day.

Join us next Tuesday, March 11 — high noon — at SXSW, in Austin Texas.

We’ll be munching on (free!) breakfast tacos and talking about exactly what it is we’re up to at Get Satisfaction.

We’ll be right next to the convention center, and we have bona fide conversations for you to join:

* 12-12:30: Breakfast tacos! (Salsa!)

* 12:30-1:15pm: Get to Know Get Satisfaction: A Primer. All the ways companies are using Get Satisfaction to reinvent customer service and build community. We’ll have some current company users on hand to talk about their own experiences with Get Satisfaction.

* 1:30-2:15pm: The Secrets of Managing Customer Communities. The tough problems around community management — and the easy solutions. Our community management team talks about building and maintaining the Get Satisfaction community, with an eye toward helping your company get started building your own community.

* 2:30-3pm: Of OAuth and APIs: Integrating Get Satisfaction on Your Site. Your customers can hop from your site to ours. We tell you how. Specifically, we’ll cover OAuth, a new third-party protocol that makes it (relatively) easy to give your users instant access to Get Satisfaction without the need to create another account.

Come, listen, participate, and be part of the breakfast taco community.

PureVolume Ranch
323 E. 2nd Street
Austin, Texas 78701
Map it

You can RSVP right here.

Can’t wait to hear exactly which different types of tacos are on the menu? Contact lane [at] get satisfaction [dot] com.

By Eric Suesz | Posted in SXSW, Satisfaction, Tips and tricks, appearances, community, company, conferences, customer service, hospitality, tacos | Comments (2)