Adam's dashboard

Hi Adam,

I hear your concerns and we welcome any suggestions you may have to make the language / header design more clear for those company areas where there is no official participation.

Thanks in advance for any input.

We both answered at the same time without knowing the other was responding. I removed mine so as not to be redundant. :) – Amy Muller, on August 28, 2008 18:57

(I'm studying the differences between your reply Eric and the now disappeared one from Amy Muller :) )

I appreciate your response and do understand your reasoning for creating this site. It is, as you say, valuable to both customers and businesses. My problem comes from the way that you present this means of feedback.

Using the B & H Buses example I linked to above the page title (which for many would be the first touch of GS) makes the page look very much like it is an official support resource for the named company and not a third party offering.

The page design itself also places the subject company's name in large bold type in the upper left corner of the site (and, if available, the logo too). This is where most web users would look if they were hoping to identify the site they were visiting as is the case in 99.9% of web sites. Your site is very skilfully designed, taking into account your subject matter I have trouble believing that this convention was ignored in an effort to differentiate yourselves.

The Get Satisfaction brand is deliberately one that fits with those of other companies which is something that I understand you would aim for as it has to sit alongside a billion other logos but for me, in its current positioning this serves to support my current, slightly wary, view of how you are doing things.

My main reason for this concern is that I believe less savvy web users may believe that they are submitting genuine support issues directly to the business that they are dealing with when they post them here. This could then leave the customer thinking that Company X is neglecting them when they don't reply because Company X don't use your service.

This isn't an attack or a troll, it's a genuine concern.

First, I'd like to say that we definitely do not intend to mislead anyone into thinking that we are passing off, as you say, as other businesses.

We are a genuine, third-party platform and support channel for many businesses and organizations. Some use us exclusively, some use us as an adjunct, but some don't participate at all on our site. We strive to clearly call out when companies are participating and when they are not. We would love it if every company wanted to use us, but we understand when they don't want to participate.

We periodically review our language on the site to improve clarity, and we'll take another look at this piece of verbiage and see if it can perhaps be more accurate in as many situations as possible.