New Social Networking Site Measuredup.Com Gives Consumers Real Power to Effect Change
Posted on: Tuesday, 19 December 2006, 12:00 CST
NEW YORK, Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Measuredup.com today announced the launch of a new Web site for customers to review and rate how they've been treated by businesses. The site, one of the first to bring purpose and power to social networking, gives consumers a channel for expressing their opinions and, ultimately, influencing the way organizations large and small conduct customer relations.
The site is designed to address the customer service void growing in the wake of technology's fast pace forward. The rise in Internet shopping, automated voice systems, outsourced -- and offshored -- customer service departments and other technology-driven trends have served mainly to distance customers from companies rather than, as many marketers claim, bring them closer together. And while the Internet has helped customers become more informed in their purchasing decisions and perhaps, as a result, given them more influence in the product development and release processes, it hasn't given consumers an avenue for holding businesses accountable for their customer service.
And Mom and Pop businesses and smaller brick-and-mortar organizations, while they haven't been able to use technology to insulate themselves from customers to the same degree, seem to show equal declines in service with customers reporting far more instances of staff rudeness, indifference and incompetence.
Measuredup.com is intended to address and resolve these voids in a way that is both fun and empowering to consumers.
"When it comes to customer service, the whole idea of 'empowered consumers' is more myth than reality," said Marc Karasu, Measuredup.com's founder and CEO. "Anyone who has ever been relegated to the automated-voice- system of a corporate giant's customer service department knows that complaints often quite literally fall on deaf ears. And, similarly, what recourse can the dissatisfied customer of a local mom and pop take if the proprietor dismisses or ignores the complaint? Sometimes, withdrawing your business isn't enough."
By providing consumers a fun, accessible platform for venting, discussing and amplifying their customer-service interactions, Measuredup.com gives individual experience a public stage upon which the best and worst in customer service can be put in the spotlight. As such, Measuredup.com gives consumers an actual say in how they are treated in the marketplace.
Through the Measuredup.com site, users can rate businesses or services on a 5-point scale, and then add a review detailing the reasons for their ranking. Everything from the neighborhood grocery to a national wireless provider to a taxi driver can be "measured".
Accompanying the reviews are colorful icons that synopsize the rating for customer service -- a green smile face indicates complete satisfaction and a red frown face indicates complete frustration. After the Measuredup.com Web manager has scanned for potential business representatives posing as consumers, reviews are posted in their original context, with their original text (although obscene language and other inappropriate text is removed) so that the voice of the contributor and the details of the experience are preserved in their purest, most honest form. Karasu then encourages users of Measuredup.com to inform the business or service provider it has been "measured up" so feedback gets to the source.
In this way, Measuredup.com aims to prove that technology and user generated local content, when used correctly, can actually bring consumers closer to a business.
Categories on the site include banks and ATMs; beauty and convenience; boutiques, clothes and shoes; cable TV, phone and Internet; commuting systems; delis, coffees and snacks; dry cleaning; electronics; gas stations, car wash and oil; groceries; hotel motels, and bed and breakfasts; movies and theatres; restaurants; and other.
The site, which is national in scope, officially launched on Dec. 15. About Measuredup.com
Measuredup.com is the social networking site where consumers rate and review their customer service experiences at any business, anywhere, at any time. The site's founder, frustrated by an increase in incompetent, rude and outright abusive treatment by businesses both large and small, sought to develop a platform where consumers could share their experiences, vent or praise as appropriate and, ultimately, effect positive change.
Measuredup.com
CONTACT: Marc Karasu, Measuredup.com, +1-917-863-0358; JasonSchlossberg, Kwittken & Company, +1-646-747-7140, jschlossberg@kwitco.com
Web site: http://www.measuredup.com/
Source: PRNewswire
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