

Show HN: Tipnik – Instant customer feedback for local businesses - deejaybog
http://www.tipnik.com

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deejaybog
There is a widespread belief that customers don't give feedback today because
they feel that businesses don't listen. It doesn't help that giving feedback
today is not easy; there is no simple and consistent way of doing it, so the
users don't bother. Businesses don't seem to listen because they usually don't
focus on feedback (studies show that small businesses are not aware of the
costs of aquiring customers vs retaining them) so it's a vicious cycle.

Our hypotesis (that we are going to test next) is that:

1\. Providing an easy and consistent way to submit feedback across _all_ local
businesses will lower the barrier to the point where _some_ users will start
using it.

2\. Providing an easy way for businesses to receive and respond to feedback
via known tools (email) will improve the level of response. Also by being the
intermediary, we can act on behalf of the consumer to help close the
communication loop.

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fiatjaf
The real problem nobody is solving is that small businesses need feedback from
customers to improve their services, but no one gives, and they also don't
know how to ask.

Why would customer spend his time installing this and them commenting about
some business, with almost certainty that the business will never read that
comment?

How can the business get valuable feedback -- not just childish rants or
cheers?

These questions remain open.

------
deejaybog
We use foursquare for local business information, filtered based on user's
location.

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vhost-
Where's the data coming from and how are you considering a business as local
or not?

