Some time ago I read this
piece by Max Barry and it really got me thinking:
Quote:
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[Companies] spend billions of dollars to get their names on our lips and their logos in our eyes, but letting us talk about them is dangerous: we might say something they don’t like. They want what Naomi Klein calls the “one-way conversation:” to be able to speak to us—endlessly so, through billboards and television and radio and product placement in your movies and the back of your bus ticket—without allowing us to speak back. Unless, that is, we’re saying positive things about them; unless we’re “on message.” And so they seek complete control over their names, to ban us from uttering them unless it is to speak praise.
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And that’s how I feel the situation is here in our region. To criticize a company in public on a web site, like this one for example, is not very well received by many businesses here, and they don’t really seem to know how to deal with it. My view is, that if a business is being criticized on a site, then they need to be a part of the discussion that is going on, the conversation if you like. If they’re not, they’re on the outside; being silent, not being heard, and they have little right to complain then about what is being said.
It happens that a user on our site has posted about a particular store, about their service not being up to par, for example. Usually I then try to get in touch with that company to see what their side of the story is and pretty much all the time they tell me what’s going on but I can’t tell anyone else, and certainly not post on the site. The problem from the business’ point of view with that is it is all well and good that I know something, but if that’s not shared with others, it’s of very limited use.
And it also happens that companies ask me to sensor what a user has posted on the site because they felt they were unfairly treated or something. We continually discuss what standards to apply here and in situations like these we draw the line at personal attacks and foul language. If a user has a genuine complaint or view, they have the right to put it across, but they should do it in a nice way and don’t attack individuals. So in the words of the quote above, these companies seem to want to talk to us one way, without us, the market, the customers, talking back to them. That I don’t think is a very good idea.
Instead I would like to see businesses be active on this site and others and engage with users and customers just like you. You have an important voice and for most of you it’s just waiting to be heard. The question is what businesses will listen and engage with you in a conversation? So far they seem to be very few.