Would you like to be a secret shopper?

There are organisations out there which charge retailers to send in secret shoppers who look for customer service issues. It helps them improve what they do, be more customer focused and make more money.

However if they are prepared to invest in this kind of customer service audit they are likely to be pretty good anyway. Additionally do they tell their customers what they found and even if they did, would we believe them?

Gibli is a service which allows you to be your own secret shopper. It allows you to pass on your experience through a third party website so that other shoppers can see your point of view.

Any organisation can be reviewed as you use their website to identify them. If a small business doesn’t have a website, search google for them and use a directory listing.

Additionally the scores you give an organisation are averaged to create a rating for them as a whole. This gives others a good feel of how good they are as an organisation and they can drill down further to discover what they are good or bad at.

http://gibli.com

Do shops plan their shelves so you can find things?

Most shops plan their shelf space so as to help you find things. So all the pet things are together, as are soft drinks and wines and spirits.

But sometimes they get it wrong and lose a section of products which don’t sell well because people can’t find them. Or they may misplace a product within a self-section, so you can find the right area but can’t find the product.

What do you do when this happens? Is there anyone around when you need help or are they as lost as you?

When was the last time you gave up? Tell all on http://gibli.com

What would you do if a company treated your very badly?

Unfortunately this does happen. A customer buys a product or service and the company takes advantage and leaves the customer with a useless product and no money.

Any normal company would do their best to make it up to the customer. However a bad company will ignore it and take the view that they have the customer’s money and nothing else matters.

Companies like these give their industry a bad name. People run campaigns against them on twitter, but of course they don’t use social media and don’t care anyway.

They generally rely on the high value one time purchase and know that once they have the customer’s money that’s the end of the relationship.

I believe that every company should have a customer service rating and that it should be that which governs their page rank on search engines. That’s why we built http://gibli.com

How do you choose when big sums of money are at stake?

Say you were about to spend thousands on a new kitchen. How would you choose which kitchen company to use? If you are lucky you’ll get a personal recommendation. But is the person who does the recommending getting a commission?

If you were choosing a hotel you’d look at the hotel’s ratings, but for many other sorts of organisation there is either no rating service or no-one has rated them.

In the case of low cost stuff you need to buy you can shop somewhere else if you don’t like their service. But if you’re spending big money you need to get it wrong and lose a lot.

So the website at http://gibli.com help you review kitchen, double glazing, building and decorating companies where big money is at stake. It also allows you to search for companies and analyse their ratings and reviews.

Companies with great customer service deserve to do well.

I had some great service this morning when a bunch of guys from James Car Wash in Rayleigh, Essex gave my car a great clean. It took them just 20 minutes and they only charged me £12. In the past I’ve been charged £70 for this kind of service by other companies and they left my lights on and drained my battery into the bargain.

This kind of good service deserver a rating on http://gibli.com

Switchboard Nightmares

How long do organisations make you wait on the phone?

HMRC average is over 10 minutes but some companies take far longer.

Is there anything you can do about it apart from getting mad?

You could post it on social media or even on http://gibli.com

New Year’s Resolutions

Have you made a new year’s resolution this year? Do you think you can keep it for longer than just this week?

I suppose if you told a load of people you’d feel the pressure to keep it.

If you posted it on social media you’d have to keep it wouldn’t you?

You could say which social service worked best on http://gibli.com

Good Christmas customer service

Thinking back over the build up to Christmas build up, my customer service heros were the staff in Waterstones who helped me find the books for my father and the lady in the home shop Potters who helped me find a clever present for my super-cook sister in law.

The first was an employee of a large organisation and the second worked for a small family business. But good customer service is valuable where ever you find it.

Who are your customer service heros?

Why not tell all on http://gibli.com and help the employee and organisation at the same time.

Which organisations helped you best over the Christmas season?

Some companies are great at looking after us at Christmas as they’ve got great products and excellent customer service.

Were their staff polite, smiling and helpful despite the crowds? Did they treat you as an individual and try hard to help even though they were hassled and overworked? Did they manage to keep you satisfied despite the queues and crowds?

If they did all this and more you can rate them on http://gibli.com

All you need to know if their website address.

The grudge and the love

Many of us bear a grudge for some offence committed by a company we have used in the past. It could be that their customer service was insulting or aggressive, or that the company committed some offence such as polluting the environment, injuring innocent people or failing to protect employees.

Many of us may also be fans of another company because of their wonderful products, customer service or corporate ethics.

Now it could be that the second company has thousands of fans who love them, but their positive feelings about the company they love are not pooled, . This means that apart from occasional posts on social media the good company has nothing ‘sticky’ enough to benefit the company.

The same is likely to be true of the first ‘bad company’ which may also result in their grudge holders posting on social media, but again potential new customers may not see the posts. We also need a ‘sticky’ service where posts and information stay around for a while.

So if the good company gets 85/100 or 85% we know they are good, and the bad company gets 34/100 or 34% we know they are bad. This is what https://gibli.com does. If both companies made the same product, or offered the same service we could see both in a search on Gibli and instantly know which to use and where to spend our money.