My new site: www.gripevine.com BETA TEST

A story that would turn out better with gripevine:

 

My dad holds a couple of gold cards with different airlines because he flies a lot. Anyway, when he booked our trip to the Bahamas 2 years ago (5 of us) I think the system charged his card 4 or 5 times because of some buggy server. He spent several hours trying to get a hold of someone that could fix the problem. Then a bit later (while he has handling this problem) he spoke with a very rude customer support agent who basically told him to fcuk off and hung up the phone on him (after waiting in line for 30? minutes).

 

He wrote a complaint letter to the airline and he never heard anything back so he forwarded the mail again, still nothing. It was probably just deleted by some customer support agent and never got up to the management. He was treated like shit even though he spends 10s of thousands of dollars yearly with the airline.

 

With gripevine the airline would have to answer his complaint in a real manner and not just delete the emails or send him from one customer support agent to another.

I think the public aspect of the site is what's confusing.

 

Vilhelm makes a good point that a complaint site is a complaint site, and not a review site. It's only telling of how they managed complaints, and that is only useful if you have think you will have a complaint. Is it good to know that if there is an issue, it will be taken care of? Definitely. Would you rather know that there are never any problems, but the food just isn't that great? Or maybe that there are few complaints that were mishandled but that the food and prices are amazing? Probably one of the second two. Not really sure how to phrase this, but there is a difference between a real complaint and a personal complaint. Or maybe I should say, there is a difference between having a complaint and being disappointed (or giving praise.)

 

I think a site geared toward complaints should be private rather than public, and that it should be facilitating the resolution. I just don't see the general public coming to a site unless they had a complaint themselves. That said, I don't know what exactly is going on behind the scenes, so maybe you are doing that. There isn't a ton of info on the site yet, so I'm not sure what actually is happening after I publish a complaint.

 

There is one big issue I take with the site:

 

Earning points to buy stuff (or do whatever.) You are rewarding people and giving them incentives to complain about others publicly. I think that compromises the integrity of the site.

 

It's not bad to reward people for contributing and helping out, but I see a conflict of interest in rewarding people for doing something that the site seems geared towards remedying: complaints.

A story that would turn out better with gripevine:

 

My dad holds a couple of gold cards with different airlines because he flies a lot. Anyway, when he booked our trip to the Bahamas 2 years ago (5 of us) I think the system charged his card 4 or 5 times because of some buggy server. He spent several hours trying to get a hold of someone that could fix the problem. Then a bit later (while he has handling this problem) he spoke with a very rude customer support agent who basically told him to fcuk off and hung up the phone on him (after waiting in line for 30? minutes).

 

He wrote a complaint letter to the airline and he never heard anything back so he forwarded the mail again, still nothing. It was probably just deleted by some customer support agent and never got up to the management. He was treated like shit even though he spends 10s of thousands of dollars yearly with the airline.

 

With gripevine the airline would have to answer his complaint in a real manner and not just delete the emails or send him from one customer support agent to another.

 

Maybe it would have, but it wouldn't be the best idea. What he should have done was just called his CC, told them 4 of the charges are not legit. Then it would be on them to deal with it, and they would. The CC company has a direct relationship with both parties.

Maybe it would have, but it wouldn't be the best idea. What he should have done was just called his CC, told them 4 of the charges are not legit. Then it would be on them to deal with it, and they would. The CC company has a direct relationship with both parties.

Yeah, of course. He got it handled after a little while. I was talking more about how the situation was handled by the airline, being rude and hanging up when he waited in line for 30 or so minutes and not answering the complaint letter. It's ridiculous. You can't treat any customers like that and defiantly not your best customers.

Brian you are saying that people would only come to site to place a complaint, people enjoy gossip and drama they will also be on site for entertainment purposes, if you make gripevine.com the go to place to check on a company's credibility they will also go for that reason, not necessarily to place a complaint themselves, how many times do you see threads on LP "Do you know so and so? Have you had any dealings with such and such?"

Similar thing but at a global scale.

 

At the end of the day what a website needs to generate profits is traffic how you get there is irrelevant as long as you get there.

 

Relevant example, you can't stop talking about it coming here checking this thread, expressing your opinions, views.

I am pretty sure you will be checking out gripevine.com all the time, while on there an add will pop up with a listing of the awesome watches you

like, you can't resist the excitement and click on it, chi-ching Aram just made few cents to go towards his ever growing car collection or whatever else he might enjoy

I think this could be a good idea if it really is about actually getting a complaint resolved with a positive outcome (rather than just another medium to broadcast a complaint)

 

The 2 problems I see with it are:

 

1) Are the sort of companies that have terrible customer service really going to change their ways just because they show up on a website?

 

2) The 'type'of person who will be incentivized to make a gripe in order to earn points - possibly the used condom / hair in a bed type ! I think this feature could cost you a lot of time unless you can automate the validation process....

 

 

Good Luck with it I say - it will be interesting to see how you do.

 

Zack

Yeah, of course. He got it handled after a little while. I was talking more about how the situation was handled by the airline, being rude and hanging up when he waited in line for 30 or so minutes and not answering the complaint letter. It's ridiculous. You can't treat any customers like that and defiantly not your best customers.

I wouldnt of even called the airline.. One call straight Amex... DONE

I think this could be a good idea if it really is about actually getting a complaint resolved with a positive outcome (rather than just another medium to broadcast a complaint)

 

The 2 problems I see with it are:

 

1) Are the sort of companies that have terrible customer service really going to change their ways just because they show up on a website?

 

2) The 'type'of person who will be incentivized to make a gripe in order to earn points - possibly the used condom / hair in a bed type ! I think this feature could cost you a lot of time unless you can automate the validation process....

 

 

Good Luck with it I say - it will be interesting to see how you do.

 

Zack

 

1: I would think or hope it would be in the compnay's best interest to clean up their act assuming that they care. And if they don't care or don't want to do anything about a bad a bad situation, the cannot they were not given a fair shake.

2: The point system will be honed. The structure of it is not cast in stone and when you think about it, since the points will be worth nothing unless they can be used for something, would it be a priority for someone to launch a bunch of gripes for the sport just to earn points?. Again, this will be a time as you go thing.

I want to add a couple of thougths that i believe need clarifying at this stage so that you guys understand the intentions behind the site.

1-In responding to Brian's comment about rewarding people and giving them incentive to complain about others publicly and how that compromises the integrity of the site.

I sort of addressed this in the previous post but i can see how it can be misconstrued. I am not looking for gripevine to become a place where people post mindless and frivolous complaints just for the sake of earning points. At the same time, we do want to encourage people to use our site to publicize their legitimate gripes and the point system will be a part of why they should. So the point system is meant to be an incentive to use gripevine and not as an incentive to complain. I know it sounds good hypothetically but practically, it is pretty much the same thing and tough to differentiate and that is why it is an area that will need refining and honing .

2-In the very short future after the official launch of the site, the public will have the abilikty to post private complaints directly to companies that have accounts on the site with the understanding that the private complaints can be made public at any time at the discretion of the user if they feel the company isn't rersponding in a satisfactory manner.

Brian you are saying that people would only come to site to place a complaint, people enjoy gossip and drama they will also be on site for entertainment purposes, if you make gripevine.com the go to place to check on a company's credibility they will also go for that reason, not necessarily to place a complaint themselves, how many times do you see threads on LP "Do you know so and so? Have you had any dealings with such and such?"

Similar thing but at a global scale.

 

At the end of the day what a website needs to generate profits is traffic how you get there is irrelevant as long as you get there.

 

Relevant example, you can't stop talking about it coming here checking this thread, expressing your opinions, views.

I am pretty sure you will be checking out gripevine.com all the time, while on there an add will pop up with a listing of the awesome watches you

like, you can't resist the excitement and click on it, chi-ching Aram just made few cents to go towards his ever growing car collection or whatever else he might enjoy

It's a good site and idea, no doubt but what Brian (and myself) are trying to get across is that the site would be used mostly used as a tool. It would be a more efficient way of complaining than sending an email or letter. I just can't see how anyone would surf on the site, like they do on other review sites UNLESS they had a complaint them selfs. It would be more of a tool than a home. It gets used when its needed and never sees day light when it's not.

 

By making it a review site but with a major focus being on complaints and how the complaints were handled we would have everything on one single site. Then you can give the users points for posting positive and negative reviews.

 

Will it receive a lot of traffic like it is now? Sure. People will always complain. Would it receive even more traffic and longer visits if it was a review site also? Defiantly. It would also open doors to other way for the site to make an income. Like booking a hotel or restaurant via gripevine.

 

I wouldnt of even called the airline.. One call straight Amex... DONE

We needed those tickets. My whole family: Uncle, aunt, cousins, grandparents etc were all flying out to get there at the same time from 3 different countries. He flies all the time so if was possible or been the best solution he would of just done that. It would suck to meet up at the airport and find out we didn't have any tickets because Mastercard fucked up. The main concern was the way he was treated and how the situation was handled, not that they charged him multiple times for the ticket.

BMW, the site is running on Drupal, right? How was the development experience? Everything go smoothly?

 

I have a project getting started right now and it's most likely going to end up getting done with Drupal.

By making it a review site but with a major focus being on complaints and how the complaints were handled we would have everything on one single site. Then you can give the users points for posting positive and negative reviews.

 

I think such a scope would be way too vast. It's hard enough to become an authority site in one industry. Trying to create a review site for everything would probably be impossible. You'd also have to try and compete with the niche sites. People wanting travel reviews will always want to see reviews from travel sites.

 

A lot of people leave reviews at sites because they were serviced through the site. I don't think anyone leaves reviews at Orbitz or TripAdvisor unless they booked it through them. In fact, I'm not even sure that you can just leave reviews whenever you want. You probably can, but every review I've ever left was because they sent me an email asking if I would like to leave a review.

 

That is kind of their 'in' for getting the reviews. They know you went there recently and they know you probably read reviews. They also often offer incentives. Though there are restrictions and I probably won't use it during the valid dates, they did offer me 5% off my next booking. I think you'd have a hard time getting people to just review stuff for the sake of reviewing.

Awesome site! What kind of a team did you have to build it/running the operations now?

I think such a scope would be way too vast. It's hard enough to become an authority site in one industry. Trying to create a review site for everything would probably be impossible. You'd also have to try and compete with the niche sites. People wanting travel reviews will always want to see reviews from travel sites.

 

A lot of people leave reviews at sites because they were serviced through the site. I don't think anyone leaves reviews at Orbitz or TripAdvisor unless they booked it through them. In fact, I'm not even sure that you can just leave reviews whenever you want. You probably can, but every review I've ever left was because they sent me an email asking if I would like to leave a review.

 

That is kind of their 'in' for getting the reviews. They know you went there recently and they know you probably read reviews. They also often offer incentives. Though there are restrictions and I probably won't use it during the valid dates, they did offer me 5% off my next booking. I think you'd have a hard time getting people to just review stuff for the sake of reviewing.

Well gripevine is a complaint site for everything in NA so you just need to option to add positive reviews as well. It seems that only small changes have to be made on the system for people to post positive reviews.

 

People review things just for reviewing them. There are multiple review sites. I just usally google: "x restaurant review" and the reviews are scattered on different web sites and blogs

 

Anyways, good luck. I'm sure it will become successful any way. It's a great tool for sure!

As a disclaimer, I started a site which had the exact premise of this one about 10+ years ago. Without going into many details, as I think it's very tacky to brag, suffice it to say, it was a major site. Monetizing the traffic was easy, because of the size, but there are naturally many issues that will come up, such as lawsuits, weeding through the legitimate complaints, what type of recourse the consumer wants, and about 10000 other things.. I'd be happy to share my thoughts and my trials and tribulations with you Aram, just message me.

 

-Steven

 

 

BMW, the site is running on Drupal, right? How was the development experience? Everything go smoothly?

 

I have a project getting started right now and it's most likely going to end up getting done with Drupal.

 

 

Nothing ever goes smoothly lol.

Nothing ever goes smoothly lol.

 

 

I can relate.

You know Ive always got something to bitch about.

Well, it has been a long time coming but if all goes well we should be ready to launch in a week or 2 . We now have Dave Carroll on board ( United breaks guitar youtube video) and i have to say the interest has been beyond any expectations i had.

I had a few people from the board contact me a while back asking if they could invest and i am sorry to say, i have lost your info. If there still an interest, please get in touch with me again. I cannot guarantee anything as we are fully funded and had i chosen to take the public route we would have been oversold in no time.

Great news.

 

What if we have problems with your website? Can we write reviews on your website about it!?

I apologize for being a shitty beta tester. I actually had a full on rant lined up initially and lost it in the middle of my airport rage a few months ago. Unfortunately for me, I have a new gripe and would love to go off on Delta Airlines if I can find the time this weekend.

 

Up for this thread.

I apologize for being a shitty beta tester. I actually had a full on rant lined up initially and lost it in the middle of my airport rage a few months ago. Unfortunately for me, I have a new gripe and would love to go off on Delta Airlines if I can find the time this weekend.

 

Up for this thread.

 

No need to apologize for anything, everybody is busy.

We are now live and things are going ballistic.

Site looks great. Job well done!

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.