Live Customer Feedback

[mnemtsas]

Hi There,

Apologies if this is not the right forum, but I couldn't see one that matched better.

One of our customers sent us a link to an article a while back. This article discussed a company that allowed (anyone) to post feedback on their products and services. What was interesting was the feedback was put live onto the front page of the web site. Completely unedited.

It's something that sort of interests me, how would I go about achieving the same thing? I've got absolutely no idea where to even start looking. I was sort of thinking wiki's would be a good starting point. But I'm having trouble getting any sensible search results from Google.

Any ideas or pointers on where to look?

[dilligaf]

Mark, it's not complex and can be achieved in ASP, PHP, CF, ASPX. Do you have any experience with any of these?

[mnemtsas]

I have some fairly insignificant PHP experience, just messing about putting records into a database and editing them from a test web page. Other than that no. I was hoping I could find something that was approximately what I want and just hack it about. Don't really have time at the moment to do something from scratch. :mad:

Oh well.

[dilligaf]

Major props for the SEO link on your home-page. If you're on a windows server (I'm ASP) I could throw something together for ya after the weekend (this one's starting early and ending late so you'd have to be patient, we're beaching it for the holiday).

[mnemtsas]

Thanks for the offer and the compliments on the SEO link. What does 'props' mean? Something good I hope :p

I'm on a linux server so I think php is my only choice. I'll work on something in my spare time. So many things to do, so little time. :rolleyes:

[melaniejk]

Props means giving proper credit for something good.
You put the SEO link on your home page that's great.

I was a bit worried that if I put it on my site it would be a reciprocal link and then not get much credit for any posts (if they count).

So, I put the SEO Guy's link on a different site of mine. He still gets PR credit that way but then I can too.

[melaniejk]

Hmm, putting unedited feedback from anyone on your home page?
What if some nasty competitor comes along and slams your products.
Or, some kid comes along and decides to use foul language?
Sounds risky to me.

Good luck figuring out that php stuff.
I had a battle getting that to word for my mail form.
Now, I'm considering using it for a database.
I have less experience at it than you.
Guess,we will both be struggling with it this week.

[dilligaf]

[QUOTE=melaniejk]Hmm, putting unedited feedback from anyone on your home page?
What if some nasty competitor comes along and slams your products.
Or, some kid comes along and decides to use foul language?
Sounds risky to me.

Good luck figuring out that php stuff.
I had a battle getting that to word for my mail form.
Now, I'm considering using it for a database.
I have less experience at it than you.
Guess,we will both be struggling with it this week.[/QUOTE]
I agree, generally I thinks it's advised (other than on a forum) to have user submissions approved (a check box form an admin area) before posting. Regarding the foul language, it's possible to filter for them but you've gotta enter em all individually (the bad words that is).

Sorry I can't kick in with the PHP.

[mnemtsas]

Thanks Mel for the 'props' definition.

You're probably right about the feedback thing. I'll try to get something working in the next week or so and put it up and see what happens. Most likely nothing!

[disgust]

I'd definitely have them approved first- even if all your customers are satisfied, there's still a big potential from abuse (and no matter how good you are, if you have a ton of customers, eventually SOMEONE is bound to not be completely content).

[jlknauff]

This isn't exactly what you were loking for, but it may work for you. It is REALLY easy to set up too.

http://www.phpbb.com/

[seo guy]

Yeah, I would go with a forum for this, the reason behind it is it improves your pagecount and creates unique content every time a thread is started. This could really help your site with its SEO efforts and traffic as well as not only provide testimonials, but you could use it as a support avenue for your customers. Pre sales questions whatever you want. Here is the perfect example of a software company using such a forum for their site http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/ notice they also get lots of bugs reported etc so the users are actually helping with the betterment of the product.

phpbb is a free forum software that is VERY easy to setup and mod_rewrite I say for your purposes GO FOR IT!

[mnemtsas]

Hiya,

I've already got a phpBB messageboard with bug reporting that some (very few) people use. I like to kid myself this is because my software has so few bugs.

Mark