Reviews... some comments from the other side...

[eschiratti]

Hi,

congrats to this new site and the trimmed down forum. Wish everyone involved all the best. I think it is great to have a community beyond the forums of the various "vendors" where information can be exchanged.

This is just a quick post about the reviews... first of all, there should be more of them, for as many vendors as possible, I know it is a lot of work, but it should give a good overview of what's going on. It would also be great if the various vendor entries had some kind of introduction (apart from the link to the website), especially as not everyone knows who is who. You know, like "switches", "panels", "controls", "software". I mean, I do simply never heard of some of those entries.

Now my real motive/agenda is the new review today, as a vendor we receive the new entries via e-mail. We have been blessed with undeservedly positive comments in the past, so it was a bit of a shock. Not because of the entry itself though. While it is perfectly justifiable for reviews to be anonymous, in thise case, there is no dialogue as such, it is a bit like reading about yourself in the newspaper, you can just sit there.

Had I received this survey answer as an e-mail, here would be my comments:

"How satisfied are you with your service from Project Magenta?"
"Extremely dissatisfied."

What happened and when? Was an e-mail not answered? Was something said that was wrong? Did you try our forum?

"How would you rate Project Magenta's Return/Replacement policy?"
"Terrible."

Yes, it certainly is terrible, given the cost, but there is no real alternative. We have had a number of tricks pulled on us in the past and this is our only countermeasure. I know the demo method is not ideal, but if in doubt, do not buy. Judge comments by others and check our track record if unsure. Never buy anything in a hurry. I also have to purchase rather expensive software occasionally and I make pretty damn sure it is what I need.

Another comment:

"For such outstanding software, the web site is very poor. "

If I knew what is being referred to, I would do something about it. The website is certainly not incredibly beautiful, but I would like to change it from "very poor" to "marginally disgusting" - and I need to know what can be done to improve it.

"I would like online pricelists. Proper resonse time to e-mails on questions. Proper time limited demo (e.g. 30 days) to evaluate the product properly."

We switched to e-mailed pricelists for a variety of reasons, normally we send them out rather quickly. The demo has to be handled this way, day limitations without being invasive to your computer with registry entries and such is not an option. And the response time... I simply need to know what is meant here, normally we are quite fast with e-mail (it doesn;t leave much room to understand whether technical reasons are to blame for this).

To everyone, enjoy your holidays if you have them and all the best for 2006!

Ciao

Enrico

[Bob Reed]

Hi Enrico. You do bring up some good points. I will discuss these with the team and see what we can do. More input would be good..

[dodiano]

Yes maybe some of these comments/concerns could be more specific or give the user more space to comment on or maybe throw them into a Forum where these thing can be handled...
Sometimes people confuse the fact that the Project Magenta team won´t get back to them with some sort of nasty comment or aggression just because they didn´t like a certain thing or issue about the product or service and maybe they where shy or scared to talk to you about this matter... These are just opinions not to attack a company or individuals but to help you guys develop a better product!
We all now that Enricco is a very professional person and that he works with a team of professionals that ensure that the product performs as it should... And I´m more than sure that these things could be talked with the costumer maybe he´ll approach you I just hope this doesn´t become a place where companies will think someone is trying to attack them.
It is not the Idea from Matt and the guys we are trying to help here!

Regards,

Roberto Soriano

[Matt Olieman]

I think everyone makes valid points. My professional opinion is; customer feedback is essential to any business. We all like to hear about happy customers and the good job we are doing. Unfortunately, even though we try are best, we seem to miss a few items, then we have unhappy customers. It's more important to find out about our unhappy customers then it is about our happy customers, because we need to find out, within reason what we can do to improve. We need to find out our customer needs, as a professional that's our business. Here is the UNFORTUNATE part again; unfortunately, some customers are afraid they may be reprimanded by their constructive criticism, which again, is unfortunate. It's unfortunate for the customer and the vendor as well. Because of this our Surveys are done anonymously.

I've talked to many people who have filled out surveys, most say: "I don't mind if anyone knows that I filled out a survey." It's the ones that say: "I don't want anyone to know" and we should honor their anonymity.

It almost sounds like I'm defending IFSBI's survey process, please don't misconstrue. I agree wholeheartedly with Enrico, I would want the opportunity to chat with the customer that is not satisfied and try to make things better and ask more details.

The Survey program is designed to do that. It's designed for a retailer or manufacturer to get responses back from the customer. We modified the program.

Regarding the Surveys, we have two purposes; provide fellow builders and vendors a satisfaction reports from customers. This works for the builders, but, becomes a limited process for the vendor. Of all the vendors we survey, one does not agree with the above philosophy, all others welcome feedback. I've considered pulling their survey, but other vendors expressed their disapproval.

Perhaps there is an other method, perhaps the whole survey program should be pulled. I would like to see IFSBI provide as much information for our fellow builder, without prejudice.

Your input is welcomed here, we're here to serve :)

[Bob Reed]

Well I was more talking about just maybe adding a few questions... Like if you where not happy with xx product give reasons and be specific.. Not a re do of the surveys or adding names or things like that. :)

[Matt Olieman]

That IS an option Bob and we need to be open to anything like that.

Any recommendations are welcome.

[eschiratti]

Any recommendations are welcome.

It boils down to this... the companies surveyed here are new and small - ours included. As professional as one wants to be, some comments made (and I am not only talking about myself) do edge on personal attacks. If PM had 500 employees and I read somewhere "Schiratti is a jerk and his web site sucks" (has been posted in another language elsewhere), it is easier to ignore.

There are concrete problems on various levels in different fields, it is easy to say they are part of the progress but we are talking about fairly complex stuff that has to be made, and at this time the process has flaws, and will have them for a while. For instance.. 10 years ago you could buy various frontplates for aircraft, put them next to the ones made now, and you can see what happened in the meantime very well.

And anonymity - sure, it removes hesitation, but not only in good ways, and people or companies are affected by these comments. As everywhere, there are personal grudges as well (let's not ignore this), and these can't be put on the same level.

I think at the end of the day what matters is the reader's ability to decide how relevant a review/survey answer is for him, a bit like on amazon.com, where the review comments are free text and they can be marked as "useful" by the readers. So the reviewer gets reviewed anonymously. It's a bit of a control mechanism.

Ciao

Enrico

[Rodney]

My 2 cents on this. An anonymous survey does not hold the taker in any type of accountability. Therefore, things will be said that are exaggerated, untrue, and have no validity. It allows a "cloak" of secrecy, and the taker never receives any feedback on the specific issues, unless the ratee becomes upset. If I were the vendor in any case, good or bad, I would want to respond to the survey taker. Thats called Customer Care! I find it hard to believe that anyone not satisfied with a product would take an anonymous survey over contacting the vendor directly. I have been involved in the home cockpit arena for many years, and sure, its not all 100%, but if one is not forward enough to deal with the vendor directly, then there are other things that are wrong, and most likely have nothing to do with the product or service.

I once worked for a company that did quarterly inter-department customer surveys. They were too anonymous. Simply answer 5 standard questions with a rating of 1-5, 5 being the highest, and an area to write comments. What consistently happened was a department could have above average ratings, but the comments, because they were anonymous, reflected a very negitive on that department. Now way to correct something like that. This type survey went on for almost 3 years, and the managers discussed the survey in length, and it was decided that the comments were possibly more true than the rating, so the options were to make them non-anonymous, or not do them. It was voted for the latter. Why? No one wanted to be accountable.

So in my opinion, an anonymous survey should carry no weight to even be addressed or read by anyone. Doesn't matter if it is good or bad rating. And I am sure that the staff here thought and discussed the anonymous survey in depth. But I will always believe that anything anonymous is not accountable.

Stepping off my soapbox now.

[eschiratti]

So in my opinion, an anonymous survey should carry no weight to even be addressed or read by anyone. Doesn't matter if it is good or bad rating. And I am sure that the staff here thought and discussed the anonymous survey in depth. But I will always believe that anything anonymous is not accountable.

Stepping off my soapbox now.

It's a good soapbox you're on and I do think that getting feedback, even when anonymous, can point to something that is right, or of course... wrong. You have to credit the writer of the review/survey with having some sort of point, whether and to what extent it is justified or not is a different issue. In the example you made, doesn't it beg the question what the anonymous negative comments were about? What the underlying problem is?

There are other good aspects to the anonymous bit. Let's face it, I would personally have a hard time posting strong words in a forum where I perceive the majority to be against me should I do that (the company's own forum or a place where they advertise <eyeroll>). Then I run to another forum where I think the majority is with me, and post there - or in a place where I am not identifiable.

In such cases, some form of communication breakdown already took place and direct exchanges are not possible anymore. I know of some very practical examples where my only way of reacting was to take notice of it, let others judge the poster's own words the way they are put and - this bit is important - react to the core statement of the poster by doing something about the core of the issue at hand to improve it - if you can. The tricky part is not to get dragged into some kind of conflict because of it.

But back to the reviews....

Imagine I am waiting for a part/feature, do not get it... am upset about it... then I go make a bad review about the entire company/individual. Ok, my bad for not contacting (or re-contacting) the vendor - but the deed is done. Then the issue is somehow independently resolved or addressed...

Can my entry be retracted/modified? Can it be commented? (check e-bay for instance)

Ciao

Enrico

[Matt Olieman]

Stepping off my soapbox now.

Soapboxes are good, don't get off :D

You hit the nail on the head Rodney. I always believe to honest and up front. If there is a problem, I'd rather be up front with a person (vendor) then do it behind their back. But not everyone thinks the same way as I do. That's why we have a secret ballot system when we vote, not just for candidates but for ideas and approval.


I think at the end of the day what matters is the reader's ability to decide how relevant a review/survey answer is for him

Enrico's comment IS the bottom line. You have to take the survey for what it's worth.

If there is one disappointment I have regarding the survey, it's the lack of participation. The more participants the more accurate the results. If I remember correctly, statistical, the average participation of customer survey is around 10%, we're not Even getting close to that. There is ONE vendor (that I know of) prints on their receipts a statement to encourage to fill out the survey at IFSBI.

When it comes to SURVEYS, there is constant research and change of how to perform an accurate customer survey. I've worked with focus groups in different organizations regarding surveys for over 30 years. It's amazing, the same concerns keep appearing as here. I can argue both ways why a survey can work, and why it won't, in the end, vendors still wanted to know what the customers said, good or bad.

Here we stand, throwing our hands in the air. What do we(IFSBI) do to provide a service for both the vendor and the customer?


Can my entry be retracted/modified? Can it be commented? (check e-bay for instance)

Excellent point Enrico. This has been discussed by our TEAM LEADERS, and thought (because of the limits of the survey program) we should set a time limit for the surveys. As an example; display the current results for six months or one year, then delete and start over. Although I prefer the e-bay method, I'll check to see if the program can be modified to do that.

[Ray]

Our company had quite the opposite problem. We do annual reviews and surprise surveys of our internal operations but we discovered that no one was filling them out truthfully because they were *not* anonymous. Given the current atmosphere of mass layoffs and firings without cause (Ever read your employment agreeement?) it is no surprise that people did not want anything negative associated with their name in regards to company operations.

Unfortunately, this creates the same problem being discussed here. I have also dealt with companies which sometimes deliver lousy service, but overall I would not want to damage my relationship with these companies by airing my dissatisfaction without the cloak of anonymity.

So, either way you go, there will be problems and there will always be that one individual that will be extremely dissatisfied and will let the world know about it. However, as more surveys are filled out and if the company in question is truly deserving of higher ratings, these one-off surveys from dissatisfied folks will have less of an impact.

Sometimes though, no matter how stellar the customer service is, some people will never be happy.

[Don]

In my view, a survey is a way to compare companies with similar services, NOT a place to attack a vendor, no matter how justified.
The correct forum for conflict resolution is direct communication.
I am a little suprised to hear of such adverse comment about Enrico's company, as I have been dealing with them for quite a while now, and despite showing my ignorance and lack of knowledge on more than one occasion, I have always been met with propmt, friendly and patient replies to my questions.
Also suggestions as to what I would like to see included in the software have always been met with a meaningful reply, and if the item is very low on the development list, then I am told the truth, not led up the garden path.
Unfortunately, there will always be the few that will never be satisfied, no matter haw hard you try.
Enrico, you don't need to change anything in the way that you conduct your business and deal with your customers, both the product and the service are simply superb.
Don

[Ray]

"As an example; display the current results for six months or one year, then delete and start over. Although I prefer the e-bay method, I'll check to see if the program can be modified to do that."


Matt:
I know you guys are using PHP and I believe a MySQL backend. You should be able to modify the SQL code to pull survey results only from the previous X months.

Something like the code below that only returns results from the last year: You'd just need to identify which procedure in the database is in charge of returning survey results to the website pages and just add or modify the WHERE clause: (No need to delete data... old data just won't be displayed)

SELECT
col1, col2, col3, YEAR(DateSubmitted) AS year_submitted
FROM SurveyEntries
WHERE
DateSubmitted > = DATEADD(YEAR, -1, GETDATE())

[Rodney]

Watch out Ray, Matt is watching your ability to program in Sql.

I agree that some will never be satisfied. In my dealings with PM over the years has been simply put "Outstanding" I can ask for a new code, when I blow my system away and reformat, and I am always amazed that Katy takes less than 10 minutes to respond with a new code. And really, any company I have dealt with lately has met or exceeded my expectations. I just infuriates me when someone attacks or has what appears to the subject to be a very important issue, but because the statement is not always clear, it causes grief, and to boot, cannot be fixed. Sure is a sad thing. So I hereby make my new years resolution to treat each person I meet this year with utmost respect and civility.

[Matt Olieman]

Rodney is right.......

I DO like the E-Bay method, and I like the ability to purge the database with the ability to redo the survey.

Ray, Thank you:) I'll have to check with my friends at Chumpsoft and see what they can do.

[Ray]

I think you guys are using a pre-5.0 version of MySQL, which would mean that all of the SQL code is in-line with your PHP code. So, the same place where you make modifications to your website is also where you'd modify the SQL.