Can't Get No Satisfaction? Join an Online Discussion About Your Brand

Don't let the name fool you. Get Satisfaction is not of the type of website that would get you fired if you viewed it in your office cube. In fact, it's quite the opposite: Its focus is on what many companies, especially small businesses, need right now: an inside track on what your consumers are saying about you.

I had the pleasure of discussing with Lane Becker, President and Founder of Get Satisfaction, the importance of business transparency and how his company helps other businesses achieve that goal. By providing an online forum for companies and customers to communicate, the customer-service website moderates conversations where both parties can discuss their thoughts, both positive and negative. Customers can post both questions and answers, meaning they don't have to wait for the company in question to discover the site's existence. They can also exchange stories on individual experiences, provide informal product reviews, log problems, laud a recent company improvement, or post an idea for an alternative or future use for the product -- all without the company itself ever interacting.

But once the company does get involved, it gets really exciting -- for both parties. Customers receive official feedback and the recognition they deserve, while companies can then take the reins of the conversation and perhaps even steer it in a more favorable direction. They can read posted ideas, and either choose to implement them or provide a note thanking the consumer but politely declining. The company also has the option of integrating Get Satisfaction's tools into the company's own website. Any company that's ever operated a call center is already imagining how much this would cut back on calls - and therefore money - to phone representatives who otherwise must deal with repetitive problems.

This sort of transparency and corporate community -- one of the three pillars to business success that I outline in my book, Rubies in the Orchard -- is imperative if a company wishes to succeed. Get Satisfaction represents the new face of customer service. While it certainly is not the only tool available, it highlights some of the most important areas for companies to focus on, including providing users with a way to retrieve quick answers and a way to stave off vicious rumors before they grow out of control. Consider the site a training ground for when a company is faced with a true crisis.

Take, for example, the recent Domino's fiasco. Had Domino's reacted immediately, perhaps Time wouldn't have felt the need to post the five steps the company should take to salvage what they could of its reputation, including blogging, counteracting negative Google searches, and updating its Wikipedia page, which, as of the printing of this article, still details the incident minus Domino's reaction. While the company's eventual response -- including a company-wide Twitter initiative -- has since gone on to receive praise from marketers, their initial delay means that the Internet has exponentially more negative sites than it might have had they reacted immediately.

Because not every business, especially the smaller ones, can afford the time and money involved in countering such an incident, it's imperative that they invest in some form of ongoing customer-service system so that, should the worst-case scenario ever happen, they already have a network in place to launch a counterstrike. Many businesses already use Facebook, Twitter, and a variety of other social media outlets for this very reason.

Upon my first perusal of the site, I found a nine-month-old comment attacking FIJI Water and realized that not only had we missed out on an opportunity to better inform one of my prospective consumers, we had also left a potentially detrimental statement lying around uncountered for all the world to see. We take meticulous steps to ensure the reputation of our brands, so it pains me when I find loopholes that could easily be sealed shut.

Of course, Get Satisfaction isn't a panacea for customer service, but I have yet to find a better jumping-off solution for small businesses. What I see in the site is the potential, both for itself and in the knowledge companies can acquire by using it. While the company offers professional one-on-one consulting sessions, the free features alone are a training ground for dealing with complaints and questions. By skimming existing conversations between other companies and their customers, a customer-service neophyte could learn enough tactics to fill a textbook.

As a site, Get Satisfaction still has some growing pains to endure, including making improvements to its design and login process. But I'm hopeful. Lane Becker and his colleagues not only have a unique selling proposition, they have heart and a purpose. And that will get you further than evasion and denial in any economy.