WebAssured.com - the dot.confidence company

Edward C. Baig

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I don't like to complain, but have I told you my troubles? How a sales clerk was rude? How my new computer crapped out on me? How a promised rebate never arrived? And how, when I tried to report these injustices to the companies involved, I was put on hold while a perky recorded voice told me how important my call was?

Right.

Letting off steam may be therapeutic, but the real goal of complaining is to get a fast and favorable response. That's why I'm intrigued by the bevy of new sites that transform the Net into Gripe Central Station. The sites, with such descriptive names as Planet Feedback.com and uGetHeard.com, let you air your grievances with the hope of pressuring companies to patch things up. Some sites help you construct a complaint letter. Sometimes (for a fee) they'll write one for you.

WebAssured.com lets you download a free browser plug-in called ShopAssured that helps you assess the risk of buying at online merchants. So, as you shop and surf, the ShopAssured toolbar, still in its test stage, will display a five-point confidence rating of the merchant and will include buttons that let you instantly register a complaint or check a company's background. The plug-in works only with Microsoft Internet Explorer, though a Netscape version is in the works. WebAssured also says it will offer up to a $200 money-back guarantee on purchases made at more than 5,500 member sites.

Lots of people think customer service is an oxymoron. The Council of Better Business Bureaus estimates that the number of complaints at U.S. bureaus exceeded 420,000 in 1999, compared with fewer than 269,000 six years earlier.

For more information

www.bbb.com
www.complain.com
www.customerssuck.com
www.ecomplaints.com
www.epinions.com
www.feedbackdirect.com
www.fightback.com
www.jdpower.com
www.planetfeedback.com
www.ugetheard.com
www.webassured.com

Consumers could always turn to Net newsgroups and online bulletin boards to excoriate undependable products and firms. But these Web sites provide a central repository for complaining and, in some cases, praising the good guys.

Voicing her opinion online paid off for Vanderbilt M.B.A. student Shelley MacMorran. She visited PlanetFeedback after the bill for an airline ticket purchased via Priceline.com was higher than expected. MacMorran had bid $150 for a flight between Nashville and Cleveland, but the tab came to $200. She says Priceline had indicated that the final bill would be above the bid because of taxes and airport fees. But MacMorran says she was led to believe that the extra charge would come to only about $20.

At PlanetFeedback she filed a "suggestion" that Priceline would do users a service by letting them see the total cost ahead of time. Sure enough, within a couple of hours, a Priceline representative called to apologize, and the company sent her a $50 gift certificate.

Not everyone can expect a happy ending, of course. But whining at the sites I checked out is fairly simple, and there's not a whole lot to lose.

A closer look at three sites where the kvetching is free:

eComplaints.com. One of the best things about the site is that visitors can search a database of all registered complaints. I would only hope the companies named in those complaints are monitoring the site to see what folks are saying about them.

You'll find complaint questionnaires tailored to more than 50 industries. So if your target is an airline, its name will show up on a clickable pull-down menu, as will a variety of complaint issues associated with the industry (trapped on the tarmac, flight overbooked, etc.). If your beef is with a long-distance phone carrier, the menu offers such options as poor connection choices and charges for uncompleted calls.

You can click on more than one problem ("rude clerk" and "overcharged," for example) and type in the particulars of your case. What you enter here is what will be shared with the cyber-public. You can make known the kind of redress you seek, again in a pull-down menu (frequent-flier points, credit voucher, etc.) and estimate the dollar value of damages suffered.

The site compiles market research data from the people who complain. I found this to be a minor privacy intrusion, although in most cases you can withhold information that you want to keep to yourself.

By the way, eight of the 10 most-complained-about companies at the site are airlines, with American, Delta and United topping the dubious list. Companies are invited to respond to any complaints at the site, but few do so publicly, eComplaints founder Jennifer Biscoe says.

PlanetFeedback.com. In living up to its moniker, PlanetFeedback gives you a forum to rant against or praise a company. You can offer suggestions (as MacMorran did) or pose a question. If you don't know whom to complain to at a corporation, you can search a database of companies for the address, phone number and key contact names.

Ready to grumble? PlanetFeedback provides templates for helping you compose a letter, sometimes with the CEO's name filled in. You can type in blocks of text to explain what bugs you and why and to inform a company what you expect in return. You'll also find general tips on writing the missive. ("Watch your tone. You may be upset but sarcasm or profanity won't get you very far.")

The Hall of Flames displays "letters that shame." A recent example: A person expressed outrage over the price and value of Blockbuster's rewards program. ("I belong to many rewards programs from hotels to airlines. ... NONE of them make you pay $9.95 for a membership kit.")

uGetHeard.com. As with PlanetFeedback, uGetHeard gives consumers the chance to applaud or trash companies, which explains why the site recently morphed from uGripe.com into its current incarnation. CEO Michael Chen says uGetHeard is building its business on ensuring a resolution rate of 80% or better, with the goal of concluding most disputes in a day. Here, too, consumers fill out a detailed questionnaire describing the incident, the steps taken to resolve the dispute, and so on.
But speaking of complaining, I have a nit with uGetHeard. In some cases, I was forced to answer certain questions before I was allowed to proceed. For example, if all I wanted to do was grumble about an ill-mannered clerk at a pharmacy, I didn't think it necessary to fill in the cost of the bill. Without doing so, however, I could not move on.

America Online, United Airlines and AT&T are the companies consumers whine about most at this site. But take these stats with a grain of salt. Airlines turned up as the fourth-most-complained-about industry. But it also was the No. 1 industry on the most-applauded list.

Now that you've had a chance to vent, you might want to peek at a site where the customer is never right. At Customerssuck.com, those frustrated service reps get to rant about you.

Edward C. Baig covers technology for USA TODAY.

Appreciating the value of a fine whine