Vendor Ratings Forum

[Aquattro]

jeez, I go eat and you guys start smashing shite.....I'm out...

[ShrimSkin]

I've been in management at a high level for a long time. I know I know you're happy for me, it's just hilarious to me that any vendor would object to being rated. There are multi-zillion dollar corporations that pay top dollar to have people anonymously surveyed, they rely on ANONYMOUS info on a scale MUCH larger than vendors on this site (no offense), I would think most vendors on this site could have somewhat decent relationships with their base, I mean I've shopped at J&L like three times and they know my name, where I live, my livestock etc etc.. Do you write your name down next to your votes in elections? No, to prevent possible backlash. If a vendor has sooo many bad ratings, or a prticular post that they think is negative they can easily challenge it. Dodging customer feedback in any form is a big big business mistake. FInd a way to make it work for you.

[Mattgesy]

Originally Posted by wickedfrags.com

I think it is unfair to have anonymous ratings for a vendor. Customers should be held accountable for their actions and comments (as should vendors of course). I could easily coordinate to have inaccurate feeback left for vendors/competitors which would be unfair and potentially negatively impact their reputation.

How can I review who has left feedback for me???

I agree!

[michika]

I am so confused now...

So at this very moment are the polls anonymous?

On a somewhat separate tangent, if this goes forward in some way, anonymous or not, will it just be the one vote? I guess I am curious as to if, assuming something works, the staff would expand on on the voting? E.g. polls for how you feel the pricing is in relation to the rest of the city, selection of drygoods, etc. Granted this may be some ways out from the current model, but I'm curious, so I have to ask.

P.S. All bran bars really do taste great!

[Red Coral Aquariums]

Originally Posted by ShrimSkin

Dodging customer feedback in any form is a big big business mistake. FInd a way to make it work for you.

Agreed

Thank you CanReef Staff. Red Coral Aquarium believes this rating system is a valuable first step in Internet (Canreef) customer service. We try to ensure ALL our customers are Very Satisfied and feel this is a positive way to keep customer service and Very Satisfied customers at the forefront of our business.
Thank You.
Kevin
Red Coral Aquarium
(403) 338-1880

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by michika

I am so confused now...

So at this very moment are the polls anonymous?

On a somewhat separate tangent, if this goes forward in some way, anonymous or not, will it just be the one vote? I guess I am curious as to if, assuming something works, the staff would expand on on the voting? E.g. polls for how you feel the pricing is in relation to the rest of the city, selection of drygoods, etc. Granted this may be some ways out from the current model, but I'm curious, so I have to ask.

P.S. All bran bars really do taste great!

At this time, the polls are anonymous. We are looking into making them non-anonymous (can't think of the word at the moment) however it would likely only be for canreef vendors and thats only if they're interested in that.

Yes its just going to be one vote. "We" (meaning me because I did all the polls) aren't really interesting in expanding on the voting. If people are really that concerned about drygoods selection they should go to the store or ask for PMs. As for pricing, I doubt we'll ever do that as it gets into a grey area. At this point we're pretty much happy where its at. All we're looking at doing is resetting the polls every 6 months to give vendors an opportunity to change votes (hopefully for the better) as time goes by.

I dunno about those all bran bars, they may taste great but they still look like turds

[PoonTang]

Really, were all reasonable adults here (for the most part). We all expect honesty from each other and generally get it here with no problems. And i think we can all expect that the ratings will be a pretty reasonable indication of how someone is operating thier business. Its really no different than someone asking for an opinion on a piece of equiptment. Why not just make the whole thing optional? Vendors can chose to partisipate if they want. If they cant handle the fact that someone can, and most likely will, at some point leave a negative feedback then dont sign up. No harm, No foul. And voters, vote if you want to or dont vote, look at the polls or don't, its your choice. Also i would like to see the voter having the OPTION of leaving his/her name, whether they vote good or bad. I think its a extremely useful tool for both parties and just take the results with a small grain of salt.

[fishytime]

By the way....there is a canadian reef website that is dedicated to vender reviews.It was started by someone from canreef that was unhappy with the way things were. It hasnt really taken off yet but.....

[Canadian]

I'm in the same boat as Brad with respect to having no problem leaving onymous (by the way that's the antonym for anonymous for those who were wondering) feedback and dealing with angry or upset vendors. I can see that anonymous feedback probably ensures greater numbers of responses. However, I can also appreciate that onymous feedback where members can post comments would facilitate more comprehensive feedback. In addition, this would allow other members the potential to see how a vendor deals with dissatisfied customers.

But any way it's done I'm happy that the staff has instituted a feedback system that allows for both positive AND negative feedback. In an ideal world, yes, I'd love to see both positive and negative comments with responses from vendors. Those vendors who ascribe to the Cartman mentality of "screw you guys, I'm going home" given their dissatisfaction with the current system may or may not have something to hide. But guys like Greg who evidently understand how to run a successful business and how to utilize any and all feedback provided are without a question an appreciated asset to the reefkeeping community in BC and Canada.

[sharuq1]

Sorry for the "novel".

I'm talking about people in general. I have spoken with people on and off the board that do not feel they would vote if they had a negative review, they don't want the hassle and don't want to get chased down by vendors. Why can't you just accept that someone wasn't happy?
______________

Everyone is showing valid points but I just had to comment on this particular one. While I do agree on the accountability issues on both sides of the argument I have to pointedly agree with this. This is not because I am afraid to tell people my opinion. On the contrary--I pretty much tell anyone I talk to what vendors in the universe I think are fantastic and what vendors I think are terrible and why. Don't worry canreef sponsors, the following paragraph is not about any of you, just a personal experience I had with a business to show a reason besides being "cowardly" that someone might choose not to post a negative when they felt one should be posted.

Unfortunately, not all vendors in the world are of the same mind that they need to act like mature and responsible businessmen (or women) who's main job is to satisfy their customers (thus perpetuating more business). I had a very bad experience with a particular business. I tell every single person I meet that I think they are terrible, why, and recommend no one shop there. And yet, I think were this business in a rating forum such as this one, where that vendor could access my vote-- I might just be afraid to post something negative about them for my own personal safety and the safety of my family. That bad you ask? Yes, not kidding, not everyone is upstanding or honest and when you live in a smaller area and everyone knows you and where you live that can be pretty scary.

Now that is just a case in the extreme, and I highly doubt that something such as that would be a worry from anyone from a canreef sponsor. It is just to show that there can be other reasons why a person would choose not to have a negative vote posted. From my personal standpoint, the anonymous voting should remain anonymous for reasons like the above. From a business standpoint, yes that could of course be bad for all the reasons other people have stated previously.

I hate to say it, but useful as this is for canreef members I just don't see us being able to find a way to keep our sponsors happy the way it is currently set up.

Now I'm just going to throw out some ideas here for discussion purposes (not "let's bash" purposes ). Some have already been done many times, not original, already there are inherent problems, yada, yada, yada. (But hey that is what brainstorming is for.) Somewhere there has got to be a happy medium.

Here's my meager contribution. I have taken the liberty of throwing in some ideas that people posted in this thread because they were really good ideas and deserve an 'I second that'. I am already aware of positives and negatives to the ideas (that are actually mine) posted as well as the fact some don't work, aren't mine, or have been done. The point is that maybe eventually someone will post an idea that would work. Maybe it will end up as a collaboration of several ideas by several people.

--Steal the Ebay way. Customer posts comment and rating. Vendor has chance to respond. Only so many responses from each allowed so it doesn't degenerate.

--Polls optional for vendors.

--We post everyone BUT our sponsors for the polls and leave everything else the way it is

--We go back to the way it was prior to the polls and so be it. Mods do everything they can to make sure it stays fair (one vote per ip, etc.)

--We leave it as is and so be it. Site was fine to begin with.

--We make it so members themselves can choose whether or not their vote is anonymous for the vendor rating poll.

--We leave the polls as they are, take the sponsors only off the polls, and have a "less negative looking" star system and all you see is rated 4 stars out of five or somesuch above sponsor names. This way one bad "vote" has relatively no effect on the star rating, but several unsatisfied votes would. Star votes would be monitored by the mods to ensure that people aren't using the same IP address to cheat, using it from a business, etc. etc.
-Could be anonymous
-Could be reset every so often.
-Could be accessible ONLY by canreef members and/or with so many posts to ensure "Joe Roe" from Fiddletown is a real person with a real opinion and not a made-up person by a friend of 'Mr Ron's Ocean of Hullaballoo' who hates 'Coral Freaks R Us' because the guy running it dated his little sister in high school and stole her pet monkey. (On a side note making up fake names to coral stores for this post is amusing me. )

--Our sponsors could have their own rating system that can only be accessed by customers through a link and not bother with our poll at all.

--For sponsors only (everyone else leave in the polls, sponsors taken out of polls)--because let's face it they are the ones we need to worry about, continue with the "what do you think of so and so threads: reply via pm?", but have these threads in a section only for those threads so at least they are easy to find by anyone wanting to know the information--> The person wanting to know about said store can just re-post "they want to hear too-please pm" (thus keeping sponsors names from appearing in the bad in public format and keeping opinions from pm'rs new and fresh). There could be a sticky for each name, and whoever wanted to hear about 'Mr. Ron's Ocean of Hullaballoo' could bump it up. It would show up when you click "view new posts", and if you had an opinion on Mr. Ron and his Hullaballoo you could pm said recent person who wants to know.

--Those of us having a negative experience could create an "ugh" thread in a general type section and leave out the stores' name and just tell people to pm them if they want to hear about it. (this has been done ++ before)

There have got to be more suggestions from other people, so let's continue to post them. Vendors, surely you have some ideas too.