My new site: www.gripevine.com BETA TEST

Grats on launch. Have you thought about integrating tighter with location? IE shows maps on the page of the place complained about, let people search for gripes by location [iE 5 miles from zipcode xxxxx]. You could even take it a step further with a mobile app. You could use for example Foursquare's location API to get nearby locations and let users post gripes then and there when they have something to complain about.

 

Thank you. All and more will be implemented over the next few weeks.

Thank you. All and more will be implemented over the next few weeks.

Congrats daddyo!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/...012+PRN20120206

 

One of many articles.

Grats on launch. Have you thought about integrating tighter with location? IE shows maps on the page of the place complained about, let people search for gripes by location [iE 5 miles from zipcode xxxxx].

 

Why exactly would people want to search for other people's complaints in the general area? What purpose would that serve?

Good luck with it! There is another website that is a forum for complaints and such called gripevines.com, anything to do with your project?

Why exactly would people want to search for other people's complaints in the general area? What purpose would that serve?

 

So people would know what businesses in their area to avoid? If businesses know a lot of people are checking as well, they might be more motivated to resolve the issue that caused someone to gripe in the first place.

That's great news! Congrats on the launch!

Congrats on the launch. The site seems great!

Congrats!

Why exactly would people want to search for other people's complaints in the general area? What purpose would that serve?

 

 

Because I dont really give a shit if a bakery in Michigan gave somebody the runs..... But I definitely want to know if its the one I take my family to?

I like it.

 

Great idea - good luck!

What the hell is going on in Hartford CT?!

 

http://gripevine.com/find/business

 

far as I can tell nothing....

 

 

Is there any examples on the site where a grip was resolved?

Great looking site. In the process of a web development project myself. Did you have many bugs while in closed beta?

 

far as I can tell nothing....

 

 

Is there any examples on the site where a grip was resolved?

 

Because I dont really give a shit if a bakery in Michigan gave somebody the runs..... But I definitely want to know if its the one I take my family to?

 

Well I can tell you which one it is here that gives you the runs if curiosity gets the best of you.

far as I can tell nothing....

 

 

Is there any examples on the site where a grip was resolved?

 

Just went live 2 days ago lol. A little patience wouldn't hurt.

So people would know what businesses in their area to avoid? If businesses know a lot of people are checking as well, they might be more motivated to resolve the issue that caused someone to gripe in the first place.

 

See: Yelp, Google local business listings, or any of the other hundred sites that are full of reviews (positive, negative, complaints, and praise.)

 

Gripevine is about customer service and resolving complaints/issues. It tells nothing of the quality of the business other than perhaps its customer service. It's normal for businesses to have complaints. Everyone has them -- some legit, some just bullshit from people who like to whine about everything.

 

Gripevine will give you an idea about what places have bad customer service (maybe,) not which places have bad quality product/services and unhappy customers. And it definitely doesn't tell you which has good products/services and happy customers. Solely reading complaints and how they're handled is not an accurate measure of a business, and you cannot come to any serious conclusion about the business as a whole or whether you should avoid it or not. Unresolved complaints or even a large number of complaints on Gripevine does not equal bad customer service, bad products, or mean that you should avoid the business. An vice versa, a company resolving a bunch of complaints doesn't make their shitty products any better. Oh, and it's a site about complaints -- of course the stuff you will read will sound bad. Also, how do you know if a business checks Gripevine in the first place? I own a couple pizza places with a friend, and to be honest, I haven't even checked to see if we have any reviews or stuff like that. Should I? Yea, maybe, but I probably won't. I know for a fact that we are a good business with good product though. If a complaint comes to us, it gets dealt with fairly. If someone has a complaint, they should call us, not post on some website we may or may not read.

 

With GV, you are reading about problems, judging the resolutions, and hearing none of the overalls. What if Roman's Bakery had a complaint of someone saying they got the shits several times after eating there and a response from management saying sorry, cant help ya, no refund? Sounds negative, right? Now we go to Yelp and see 100 reviews of people rating it 4/5, calling the delicious food and the best bakery in town, pleasant staff, good prices.

 

The complaints are usually isolated incidents and can very well be subjective or even inconclusive. Try proving that the staff is rude or that the bakery gave you the shits -- almost impossible. If you want to find out which places you should and shouldn't go, you shouldn't be looking at how a company handles complaints, you should be reading overall reviews from customers on sites geared towards user feedback. For example, if you needed landscaping done and you have the choice of reviewing the customer complaints and resolutions, or just the overall reviews by satisfied/unsatisfied customers, which would be more useful?

 

The point is that Gripevine, as far as I can tell, isn't a review site and shouldn't be used as one. It doesn't need a browse feature because it's not something you should be browsing -- it doesn't make sense to. You can browse it if you want, but you'll just be misinformed if you draw conclusions solely from it. At best, it would be supplemental.

 

If you want to find out which restaurants have the worst food, which construction company you shouldn't hire, and which bakeries give you the shits, go to Yelp, sort by rating, then go to the last page. Don't go to GV.

My choice of who I do business with is a split between level of customer service and quality of product. This is why I don't agree with your above thought that GV should not be used in a pre-buisness search or evaluation.

My choice of who I do business with is a split between level of customer service and quality of product. This is why I don't agree with your above thought that GV should not be used in a pre-buisness search or evaluation.

 

Well, like I said, it would be supplemental and occur after the browsing/searching stage done elsewhere. Even if customer service is very important to you, all the other criteria is what will first and ultimately determine where you go -- you can work with bad customer service, you can't work with a service/product that doesn't meet the mandatory criteria. Only once you've determined which businesses can meet your needs, can you begin to take something like customer service into account.

 

Customer service is an optional field that you use to refine your search, not a mandatory one that you use to start it. That's why it's not something that people would want to browse or even should browse. There is other, mandatory criteria in most cases that takes precedence over it.

 

You couldn't browse based on customer service history because that doesn't provide you with enough detail about the product/service in question.

 

Browsing for local complaints would only serve the purpose of committing to memory which companies have good/bad/inbetween/unknown levels of customer service. In the end though, it doesn't matter if Company A has bad customer service if they are the only company in your price range or that offers the product/service of acceptable form.

Just went live 2 days ago lol. A little patience wouldn't hurt.

 

Sorry for the confusion I was just trying to figure out what abolfaz was talking about when he mentioned Hartford CT

 

 

Also my local paper has a story on the website now http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/5983...-your-gripe-out

 

Best of luck! Site looks solid.

Gripevine is about customer service and resolving complaints/issues. It tells nothing of the quality of the business other than

With GV, you are reading about problems, judging the resolutions, and hearing none of the overalls. What if Roman's Bakery had a complaint of someone saying they got the shits several times after eating there and a response from management saying sorry, cant help ya, no refund? Sounds negative, right? Now we go to Yelp and see 100 reviews of people rating it 4/5, calling the delicious food and the best bakery in town, pleasant staff, good prices.

 

Lets use your above scenario as an example.

 

By using GV and Yelp I learned that Roman's Bakery has great food but if I have a problem I might as well yell at the cake I bought because the badoesn'toesnt care/wont resolve issues.

Lets use your aboscenarioiro as an example.

 

By using GV and Yelp I learned that Roman's Bakery has great food but if I have a problem I might as well yell at the cake I bought because the badoesn'toesnt care/wont resolve issues.

 

I'm not sure what your point is. I didn't say the information on GV is useless. I said browsing the information on GV serves no purpose.

 

What's more important to you when eating, taste or customer service? You aren't going to risk eating bad food no matter how near guaranteed the good service is, but you will risk bad service to eat near guaranteed good food.

 

Good food will always have some level of customer service attached to it -- good or bad.

Good customer service will not always have good food attached to it.

 

Therefor, if you browse GV, there is no guarantee that the restaurants with acceptable levels of customer service sell good food. That's why browsing by customer service doesn't make sense. It has to be a field used for refining your search, not starting it.

Sweet site Aram! Wasn't on LP when this thread initially started. Nice job!

Was listening to Q on CBC Radio 1 and they did a segment on Gripevine. Here's the post on their blog.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/...012+PRN20120206

 

One of many articles.

 

Also heard your site mentioned on "ASK Clark" on CNN congrats on the exposure.