Feedback for the World of Tomorrow

The wonderful thing about opinions is that everyone is entitled to one. It may not be valid, or reasonable, or factually correct, but it is your right and pleasure, as a someone capable of complex thought, to create something that reflects a recent experience. What we define as complex is up for debate, but I will define it as language for the time being, or at least until there is an app that lets the other great apes post status updates to Facebook.
– Good delivery, well packaged, great seller. Recommended +++

The internet has now given us this glorious ability to comment, rate and share everything about our lives, and to comment, rate and share everything about other people’s lives as well. As someone who knows what twitter is I can’t be too judgemental of this practise, but luckily my tweeting into the cyber-pit has no effect on your life and can be discreetly ignored.
– Contacted customer services and got no response for 4 hours!!!! Could have walked to shops myself!!! AVOID!!!

There is another type of feedback though, and one that is altogether more self-serving and, to speak from the inside looking out, unpleasant. The idea that you can leave feedback on impartial websites to provide other users with an opinion of your transaction is superb, and can be wonderfully effective, so I will graciously start with the good side.
– OMG SCAM DIDNT ANSER EMAILS AND ITEM NOT WHAT I WANTD NEVER USING AGAN!!!

Back in the day when the internet was still in its infancy, and you had to unplug the phone and listen to it dial space before going anywhere, there was Ebay. Apart from the auction process Ebay worked because every single transaction was rated, by both buyer and seller. You didn’t give bad feedback because you were likely to receive it, so even complicated and unpleasant transactions were sometimes resolved. Ebay has disposed of seller feedback now, unless you count the ability to leave positive feedback, which I don’t.
– Great Seller, prompt delivery, thanks.

Still, the process has it’s virtues: As a seller you are pained to offer good customer services, which makes Ebay (or Amazon/Play etc.) look good, and of course is beneficial to the customer. And then there’s Trip Advisor.
-Customer services were condesending condesnsing rude

Here you are not confined to one single line of bile, if you have something to say you can share it in as much pedantic detail as you like. You can rest assured that your single review, one of only 2-3 that any given business might get that month, will stand out and drag the ratings down for possibly years to come. You will also be treated with as much value as all your peers, no matter what you write, and of course let’s not forget that the internet is wonderfully anonymous, so it needn’t even be true.
-Sat down and was rudely told to move, food was slow and the waitress flung it at us, kicked me in the shins and spat in my partner’s face.

Speaking from behind the feedback lines, where you wait to be shelled with either love or, let’s face it, shit, the benefit of Trip Advisor seems a little limited. A restaurant can reach the top 5 in a town on a couple of great reviews, and who’s to say those people didn’t all suddenly join trip advisor and visit that restaurant in the first 2 weeks after opening. On other other hand a bad review, based on (for example) perceived slow food delivery or incorrect ambient temperature, can potentially cost a restaurant thousands in the immeasurable currency of lost custom.
-Wasn’t offered a free meal and complimentary drinks after sending a steak back. I wanted it rare with no red bits or blood IS THAT SO HARD?!?

So set up a trip advisor profile and enjoy the quiet pride of being a couch restaurant critic. Write interesting reviews, concentrating on the meal, because that’s why you’re there. Review all the restaurants you go to, the good ones and the bad, and enjoy the thought of doing something nice and completely free for a stranger whose food you have just enjoyed. And when it’s bad, for inevitably sometimes it will be, tell them. Tell them in a reasonable manner, and have an alternative in mind. If your table is in a draught but the restaurant is packed they really won’t be able to move you, and if they’re apologetic, understanding, and try to keep the door shut, that should be ok. If they tell you to sod off, whip out that one star review and give it all you’ve got, it makes the rest of us who try hard look better.
-I am never eating here again. Words simply cannot describe it. God I wish I could torch the place.