Giving Customers a Voice
A Discussion with PlanetFeedback.com's Aaron Roth
"The Internet creates smarter, stronger consumers," declares the preamble to PlanetFeedback.com's Consumer Manifesto. The site itself is a kind of customer feedback aggregator, designed to help consumers send both compliments and complaints to all types of businesses. On the B2B side, PlanetFeedback helps businesses analyze and react to feedback they receive. Web Techniques asked Aaron Roth, PlanetFeedback's director of product development, how the Web fits into the future of customer service, both online and off.
Web Techniques: How has the Internet changed the way businesses interact with their customers?
Aaron Roth: The Internet lets companies capture information—easily, quickly, flexibly, and in detail—very inexpensively. They can learn more from consumers, test more concepts in a shorter amount of time, interact with more depth and frequency, and provide 24-7-365 customer service—all within the same budget. If you compare this with traditional off-line focus groups, polling, and sampling, the Internet has a clear advantage. An added benefit is that Internet users who interact with a brand online are often the consumers who exert a disproportionate word-of-mouth influence on the rest of the market.
WT: So PlanetFeedback's role is to help existing businesses—whether online or brick-and-mortar—take advantage of the Web to enhance their customer service.
AR: Exactly. We believe the Internet is an important channel that enables brick-and-mortar businesses to learn from and interact with consumers.
