SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

******Update***** Please see the latest post by me

Ok, please bear with me, as this post may be slightly long winded, but it has a point..and that point being that I feel that there is a need for an online resource that covers the differing levels of service that we, as Subaru owners, receive.
This idea has been brewing for a while, whilst browsing over the numerous threads on this site and related car enthusiast forums and talking to various friends and the common thread running through, is that there is nowhere for people to either express their experiences of suppliers/garages/dealers etc or even a resource that is unbiased and purely reflects the feelings of us drivers in terms of the level of service that we receive.

Now, obviously the ideal place for this would the Dealer and Third Party Supplier Queries, but unfortunately SN is wary of such potential libel areas (yes I know !!! but after some discussion with various moderators, it all becomes clear), and as such it would be difficult to implement within this forum.

I understand that to some people, the seemingly constant accolades of such and such supplier may be tedious when compared to the unbalanced lack of a "name and shame" section or posts, is not a good reflection of the wide degree of personal experience of owners in this forum.
But if we cant have an area where we can post our grievances of a certain supplier/garage/dealer, then we must look to an alternative online resource that caters to this need.
And believe me, I think such a resouce is well overdue and much needed.

Now just indulge me for a minute longer to explain a personal reason, why I think all of the above, is both timely and relevant.

Last year, I had the unfortunate experience of being subjected to substandard workmanship from a so called "reputable" garage.
The outcome was I was left with a set of poorly refurbished wheels that were not what I originally asked for, I was out of pocket,felt badly let down by the garage in question and in the end had to sell the items for a much reduced price, because I was too embarassed to let them go for the price that they were worth.
Ok, you may say, that is just life and I should have put it down to personal experience.

Fine, except this year a close friend and fellow Scooby owner, decided to have some work done at the same garage.
Now, once I found out, I cautioned my friend about my experience and advised him to check that all work carried out by the garage was up to his level of satisfaction, before parting with his hard earned cash.
That, hopefully, would have been the end of it, but unfortunately not and he now is the process of dealing with a level of incompetence that is mind boggling and a garage that is trying to extract more money from him, even after they are clearly in the wrong.

Now we get to main point of this long and rambling post (at last I hear you say !!! ).
Lets imagine that my friend was not aware of my experience of said garage and in fact was not my friend, but was just located in the same county and was in need of some local work done on his car.
How useful, would it be, if he could click onto a website, type in the kind of service he was after,choose the area(s) he was willing to use for the work and that website brought up all the kind of reports of similar work, then how useful would that be ???

Lets put it this way, when you have been buying stuff online and there are customer reviews, have you ever been influenced by a review??
Wouldn't it be great if you could have a balanced view of local subaru related services, from people who have actually taken their cars there or bought products from these suppliers.
I, for one, am sick of not having a resource that helps us in making these decisions when spending, what could be a substantial amount of our wages.

So finally (yes nearly finished ), i would welcome your feedback if this is something that you lot would find useful.
What i am asking is:

* Is this idea workable?
* does anyone have a good idea on how to implement this outside of SN?
* am I completely mis-guided and should mind my own business
* does anyone have experience on how to get this up and running?

I welcome all comments

Chris
(swiss to you lot )

Shark Man

I'm for the idea.

But it needs to highly moderated IMO. Perhaps every post and comment made needs to be moderated before it is shown on-line. To make sure that comments are detailed as to why, and are acurate, balanced details rather than exaggerated claims because Mr tight **** thinks cars never go wrong and had to spend some money.

The other problem is legalities from companies rated under a bad light bringing in their lawers claiming libel.
I suppose a way around this is to use a hosting server based in another country where they have no jurisdiction (for example - Bit-torrent sites - many US based lawers serve the sites owners with legal notices, but because they are based in some Eastern soviet country they can't do a thing about it ).

But obviously, companies mentioned should be made welcome into provided their own comments in defence.

Legally, it's a tricky one to work, without it being shut down every 10mins due to court orders.

Implementation, within the reaches of any IT/web competent person. Hosting is tricky - as if they even start to sniff about legal proceedings they'll pull the plug for you. This is where foriegn hosting comes into play

How to go about doing it and get it running? Well you need to ask someone else that. As I don't have the answers to that.

shooter007

shark man says it all brilliant idea but in this day and age of litigation you must must be water tight sn being an open forum its easy to forget that slagging companies off can be very very painfull /terminal do you want this please dont take this as a put down i totally agree with your idea im just more cautious /distrustfull of the power some companies will use to protect there name be it good or bad would need some good law firm to sort out me thinks

BedHog

I run my own website (nothing at all to do with Cars!)

I'm pretty sure my host provides a BB for me - and I would maybe be willing to host such a forum.

Obviously it would need to be well moderated - but to be honest I don't see how people posting would make me personally liable. I have no knowledge of the law regarding this so maybe I'm wrong.

My reasons for this are due poor service from a very well known independant garage - one which cause me no end of grief if I was to moan about on SN.

Thoughts....?

*Edit - just checked, seems I can install YaBB and phpBB forums......

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

in a nutshell... we should group together and go for it. old cliche but where theres a will theres a way.

an idea however... what about asking the companies first if they mind having comments about their service on this "new forum". surely all the good companies wouldnt mind their "feedback" being viewed by others as they offer good services etc...
whereas the naff companies (swiss-t's experience being a good one) would be "off" the idea for fear of more bad than good revies, comments etc... therefore leaving the public to "make up their own mind" and not invlove a libel suit. if you can understand what im getting at...

the public (ie us!!) can then use our freedom of speech and opinion and go wherever we want. it would be like a silent view...

put it this way. if i saw a company with 25good feedbacks and 5not so good ones, and another company who refused us the right to use their name towards comments and services i would really go with the first company as they have been honest enough, whereas comapny two isnt prepared to "compromise".

if anyone can take this idea a little further and latch onto what im getting at then your welcome... just some thoughts though guys n girls.

andy.

bootsy

good idea

Bottomfeeder

Something like this ?


http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk/garages_neng.html

Swen6

Chris problem is i remember a few months back someone was here slagging Grade A off after they brought an engine from them.
Luckily the Grade A were on here and gave there side of the story and it turned out it was the customer who was the **** Hole, Grade A couldn't have done more.


Also it's a bit cloak and dagger using a forum, if you have a problem with a garage tell them how **** they are and your not happy, i imagine alot of people will collect cars with a smile and then be on the site slagging them off. Unfortunatly there's people who are never pleased.


But your idea's a good one, instead of a forum how about a garge directory?. You can do a search by area and car specialist and then let each garage have a breakdown of sections with individual scores. If someone was to use a said garage they would then be able to go on line and sumit a review, i.e give scores out of 10 in said areas. Once done this could then adjust the rating of that garage?

More ideas in to the coffers

timuk1

good idea !

tonybooth

www.****garages.co.uk is available

pwhittle

It's a great idea in theory - you can see feedback on ebay afterall.
I'd be surprised though if even the better garages would agree to it. There's an old saying which I reminded a local hoover repairer of at the weekend, after he tried to rip me off - "Do a good job and they'll tell 1 person, do a bad job and they'll tell 10". In other words most comments would be rants, which as we've seen on here, are not always justifiable. Only a minority of posts would be positive comments, as people are just less inclined to take the time.

People only vote in elections / BB etc what they feel strongly either way, and particulary if they really want to get rid of someone (F**king Lisa!).

A socring system me work, similar to ebay, but covering for eg price, aftersales, timeliness etc. These are more factual that someone spouting off that they've been hard done by.

You could ask garages to agree to be listed on there, with services, contact details etc, and have people rate their services. I think that would be more aggrebale, and they wouldn't feel they had to contrantly go on and defend themselves.

DEC14N

The problem really starts when you tell them they are sh*t, your not happy etc and they tell you to **** off, which is why people get fed up and want to voice an opinion on the service they recieved.
As stated in another thread on here Im just in the process of taking a company who did the re-sparay on mine and my partners car to court because a) they faied on three occasions to put the poor work right and b) they refuse to speak to us or reply to letters.
If there had of been such a forum I dare say our cars would of gone to the company they are with now (for the correction of the sh*t work) in the first place and saved me alot of time, grief and money.

ex-webby

Chris,

I thought that was what we had on ScoobyNet?!?

This can get complicated, but we do not shy away from people giving factual, clear and balanced feedback about companies. What we do not allow is contentious or outright comments / statements that are libel, slanderous etc etc.

I have never and would never say that negative or positive feedback about ANY supplier etc can not be made on ScoobyNet.

Unfortunately, a few people seem to think that "Freedom of Speech" exists (which it does not in this country) in the context of being able to say what they want.

Best of luck mate.

Regards,
Shaun.

DEC14N

I have never and would never say that negative or positive feedback about ANY supplier etc can not be made on ScoobyNet.



So we can 'name and shame' then if we can show factual evidence such as photos??

Shark Man

Another issue is "spoofed" reviews.

It's a very common thing on the internet with reviews sites where there are streams of people saying this is brill, fantastic, great, smashing, super. But it's all the same single person using different names to bump up the score and image.

So some form of newbie vetting system is needed. Bit difficult that, would be good if people reviewing used the same user names as their regular forums. My original comment about a moderator viewing each posts before it was submitted would help, but you still have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Bottomfeeder

Just found this on the dti website

"Trading Standards Departments sponsor the "Rip-Off Tip-Off" website, designed to let consumers report, anonymously, traders who they think are ripping people off. "

The Chief

Maybe we coudl have an offsite link i.e have a section for name and shame but with an offsite link to another forum - but has a statement from scoobynet saying 'the views expressed on the following link is no way connected with scoobynet ltd and is merely individuals experiences blah blah' i'm sure you get my drift.


Also i've noticed a few of the big reputable companies get slagged off from time to time - these people normally get shot down by others who have had a great service.

this happened with Powerstation recently, it is also a current thread knocking Prosport - although 99% back Prosport.

The thing is, if your a decent company with good service, you will always have people on here backing you up.

R19KET

Whilst I agree in principle, my concern is how open this could be to abuse, but I definately think we need to get a more balanced view on here.

However, the only way I can see this working, is that every "post" would need to go through some none commercially affiliated, responsible person/people, and "edited" first.

What some people also need to understand, is that whilst they, or in fact the majority may well have had good service from company, others may well have had a poor service, and they are entitled to voice their experiences, without getting shouted down, or berrated, by a bunch of company XXX groupies !

How do Ebay get away with allowing people to post "feedback" ? They don't seem to have any legal issues.


Mark

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

Guys

Thanks for all the replies, I am just in the middle of giving a suitable reply to all your posts...

be up soon and then hopefully we get this thing moving

alext32

I think the whole idea is sound.

Mark mentioned about Ebay, I was thinking of the similar 'star rating' you can get pretty much everywhere for restaurants etc - not sure how these forums get away with what can sometimes be quite cutting remarks.

Of course, there's a lot of variables to consider. The service you get from another garage/person/vendor etc is largely dependant on your interpersonal skills and those of the individual you're dealing with. No-one's perfect and mistakes will be made but the crux of the issue is how are problems resolved ? This is what causes the emotive (therefore sometimes irrational) comments.

I'm not sure "the customer is always right" is something that's considered very much any more - margins are next to nothing and the service industry is geared toward staying alive let alone building a great reputation.

My comments are influenced by my own bad experience with a main dealer - they damaged my car during a service and then basically told me I was a liar and I couldn't prove it ! Nice customer service eh !?

Maybe keeping it very simple (like the restaurant rating idea) and not go into any detail (which could be libelous). Why don't we just rate on 5 areas such as standard of work, people, overall service, value & overall experience. Enthusiasts such as ourselves could then make up our own minds based on the overall rating for that supplier/dealer etc. More detailed 1:1 private discussions about experiences could take place if reqd - we're all very happy to share our thoughts as you know !

Good thread Chris (Swiss)

SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

This is a great Idea Chris. Not sure how you might go about to 'make it happen'. Maybe contach the Tarding standards people to see if they have a scheme like this for car garages/online stores with customer comments/reviews. Quite a few online stores that I have seen have customer reviews.

But really I supose that if you are going to have some work done on your beloved car, then usually you are going to ask on a forum, much like this, saying 'I am going to take my car here...what are they like?' type of things.

Word of mouth is really how poeple find out about other people have had good or bad experiences at these garages/online stores. Not everybody will write a bad comment even when they have had such a service given to them, they'll just put a postitave one.

So really do your homework first before taking your beloved car or buying in an online store before you part with your hard earned.

Darren

`DCI Gene Hunt

No ! it isnt !

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

no it isnt..as in no it isnt a good idea??
explain please sir..

alext32

Perhaps he runs a very disreputable company ?

R19KET

I find some of the feed back scores on Ebay, simply astonishing.

When you compare the complaints about certain companies mentioned on SN alone, it's amazing how some companies have nigh on 100% feed back

I don't believe people should just be allowed to post what they want. IMHO, posts need to go through a none commercial, editor/editors of good integrity.

Posts need to be balanced, and objective, not emotive jibberish from someone upset they were a few BHP down on a tuning package, or, the offer of marriage from some easily pleased, over excitable groupie..............

Good companies won't be afraid of having this type of listing, so long as it's done correctly, and the companies that are afraid of such a list, are possibly the ones the list is there for !


Mark.