Archives: 2008 August

Archive for August, 2008

How to: Add and Edit BView Businesses

Friday, August 29th, 2008

As a follow up to my previous post we’ve spent some of our Friday afternoon making a couple of screen casts to demonstrate the add and edit business features we’ve just launched.

Check them out, hopefully they’ll answer any questions you might have…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-eAosen4Y]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cel8p4KozC0]

It should keep you busy over the weekend.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Edit any listing on BView

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Yesterday evening we set loose the latest features on BView. It’s taken about a month of development work, but we’re finally there and we hope you’ll all like the new changes.

The main change I’ve been waiting to tell you about is pretty cool. We know there’s more of you than there is of us, so we’ve opened up our directory to the community to help keep it up to date. Getting into specifics, you can:

Edit business details for almost any BView listing. If you find some out of date details for a business, use the “Edit” links on their listing to update name, address, telephone number and website.
Add new businesses to the BView directory. It’s only take a couple of minutes, just click the “Add business” link displayed at the bottom of every page and follow the instructions.
Add pictures and YouTube videos to business profiles. To add them, use the buttons found on the “About” view of the business profile. It will only take a few seconds and will help make our listings even more useful for the community.
Add business descriptions that we’ll display on the “About” tab of a business. Have a look at the “About” tab of any business and follow the instructions, it doesn’t take long.

We only released it last night, and we’ve already had loads of businesses added and a few listings customised too.

If you’re need some help with any of these new features, just get in touch with me and I’ll help you out.

Tags: community, directory, user data editing, wiki
Posted in Announcements, News, Product Updates | 3 Comments »

On a Digital Mission

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

We are really chuffed to have been chosen as one of the UK’s 20 hottest startups by Chinwag’s Digital Mission scheme and part and package of this involves us going to the Web2.0 Expo in September for a round of meetings and conferences.

For the full rundown on web mission head on over to The Guardian and Techcrunch .

We are joined on the top 20 list with:

Tags: BView, chinwag, digital mission, web2.0 expo
Posted in Announcements | Comments Off

The Best UK Football Grounds

Friday, August 15th, 2008

(and a BView challenge)

Love it or hate it, there’s no avoiding it. The football season is underway again. The Premier league kicks off tomorrow afternoon, and then it’s the beautiful game, non-stop for nine months (at last).

From Arsenal to Yeovil, we’ve got all 92 English league teams, and the twelve members of the Scottish Premier listed on BView, so lets have your feedback. Which ground is most accommodating, which has the best atmosphere, and which will leave you feeling ripped off?

The current standings see FA Cup winners Portsmouth topping the BView ratings, Joel P reckons Fratton Park has a great atmosphere and excellent fans (if you can get a ticket). Close behind are Hartlepool United , Yeovil Town , and the mighty Arsenal. Manchester United and Chelsea just about sneak into the top 10.

Let’s hear what you’ve got to say, find the clubs you’ve visited and leave your review.

At BView we’ve got three Arsenal fans (myself included), a Spurs fan (there’s no hope for some people), and even a Manchester United fan. As we quite like our football we’ve setup a BView fantasy football league on the official Barclays Premier League site. We’re always looking for healthy competition, so we’re inviting you to setup a team and join our league. Just register on the site, choose a team name, and select your winning eleven (or let the site pick a random team for you). Once your team’s created, all you need to do is click on the “Join League” option and enter our league code (1029829-183770). We’ll come up with a prize for the overall league winner at the end of the season (unless you’re a Spurs fan). Bring it on.

If football really isn’t your thing, don’t forget that BView still wants to give you cake, or if Amazon vouchers are more your thing, check out the August rewards scheme.

Get in touch if you’ve got any questions.

Tags: amazon, BView, cake, fantasy football, free
Posted in Competitions, Events, News | 1 Comment »

BView’s Most Unpopular Business: Gwent Fleet Management

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

Customer reviews started appearing for Gwent Fleet Management in July and have been pouring in ever since. The two listings (NP7 & NP4) for this company were the most highly viewed on BView the past 30 days and have more negative reviews than any other company on BView. While we can’t comment on the situation, we are happy that the site has been useful to the many people who have used BView to engage in an active discussion about this company. This has highlighted to us the need to allow members to write comments on other members’ reviews. Expect to see this feature debuting in the next couple of weeks.

BView was asked by Gwent Fleet Management to remove the reviews from our directory. Naturally, we declined this request (as we do all such requests from actively trading businesses). Check out what our members are saying about Gwent Fleet Management at:

Gwent Fleet Management in NP7

Gwent Fleet Management in NP4

A quick addition to this post: just found this site linked from one of our reviews: Victims of Gwent Fleet Management

UPDATE: According to The Mirror, the owner of Gwent Fleet Management was arrested on the 24th of September.

Tags: BView, gwent fleet management, worst
Posted in General, News | Comments Off

A (Less than) Happy Meal

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Today McDonald’s joined the roster of large corporations who clearly don’t understand Web 2.0. They emailed me today asking us to take down all of the 1,000+ listings we have for McDonald’s UK restaurants on BView.

We frequently get phone calls from businesses and threatening letters from solicitors asking us to remove a listing or customer review from BView – typically because they don’t like the review one of their customers has written. We always politely (but firmly) say “no”. We do not remove listings of companies that are trading, nor will we remove a customer review just because it is negative. But this is the first large corporate who has asked to be removed.

One has to wonder about the type of company would not want free advertising on the UK’s fastest growing, local search engine for 1000+ of their locations? Perhaps they do not like the reviews our members are writing about their McDonald’s?

Last month over 160 of our members reviewed their local McDonalds. Comments ranged from…

“I really enjoy going to McDonald’s because the majority of staff really nice and they always put their customers before themselves.” — contributed by Marina Rose in Cardiff

to comments like…

“Dirty staff who look like they need work on their presentation. Food is always cold and the tables are never clean.” — contributed by a member about a McDonald’s in Basildon

The overall BView league table for UK fast food restaurants is interesting. Overall, our members liked their local McDonald’s somewhat better than their local Burger King. Ironically our members seem to prefer Burger King’s burgers, but Burger King loses points based on their restaurants’ lack of cleanliness compared to McDonalds, where members frequently comment that “there is often a cleaner wandering around the restaurant tidying up after people, wiping floors, refilling straws and tissues etc.”

	Average BView Score
Domino’s Pizza	76.0
Pret A Manger	75.2
Yo Sushi	67.3
McDonald’s	63.1
KFC	62.8
Burger King	60.2

However neither burger chain seems able to compete with the fast, highly reliable delivery of “piping hot…tasty” pizzas that Domino’s delivers to BView members. Members at uni also like the student discounts that Domino’s offers. Both Pret A Manger and Yo Sushi also garner high marks, but are consistently marked down by members based upon ratings for value.

So what should McDonald’s (or any large corporation) do?

Engage. Stop ignoring and start responding to customer reviews. Companies who respond to negative reviews show that they care about their customers and build credibility with their online audience. Companies need to understand that each review (and their response) will be read by thousands of people over time.
Pro-actively manage your online reputation. Find places to interact online with customers and potential customers. Michael Dell recognised very early how powerful the Internet is for building (or harming) a corporate reputation. Not only does Dell actively respond to online feedback. Dell seeks out new ways to interact with customers and potential customers across the Web. Such actions have significantly enhanced Dell’s reputation.
Take action. If a restaurant in Basildon is dirty, clean it up! Talk to restaurant mangers who have staff that are rude and praise those whose staff are polite. There is nothing that builds’ credibility or loyalty more than acting on customer’s concerns.

The Head of eCommerce for big UK retailer yesterday told me “I don’t need to engage with my customers online. Our customers know where our stores are and we get hundreds of letters every month from our customers.” Another retailer (who employs thousands and spends millions on television advertising) told me “we don’t have the resource to respond to customers online.” Such companies are ignoring the power of the Web at their peril.

BView and Web 2.0 are about empowering people. In recent elections in the UK and US we saw how power is shifting from traditional journalists to bloggers. In a similar way, big advertising budgets will become less effective and sites that aggregate customer reviews will become more powerful in influencing and forming corporate reputations.

Tags: burgerking, BView, dominos, kfc, mcdonalds, pretamanger, reputation, web20, yosushi
Posted in General, News | 1 Comment »

Company-Customer Pact

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

I am always pleasantly surprised by how effective a chat between a customer and business can quickly solve an issue. Lots of reviews on BView have been responded to by the business owner and in many cases a potential negative review turned into an endorsement. Both sides get to make their case, misunderstandings are solved and the BView community gets a better picture.

I read about the Company-Customer Pact on Get Satisfaction and it is a brilliant idea and perhaps something we should incorporate in our terms of service. I signed it on behalf of BView.

BTW: I think we are going to start using Get Satisfaction soon.

Tags: BView, company-customer pact, get satisfaction
Posted in General | Comments Off

The Cake is Not a Lie

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

A couple of months back Kat, BView’s web designer, started giving away a free cake to the person in our office who wrote the best review of a selected topic for that week. The promise of free cake provoked a rapid review response, and so far the competitions have been a great success, and the reviews have been excellent.

Some of our previous winners include:

My review of Footlocker (and the cake, it was good)
Martin G’s review of Orange
Margaret M’s review of National Car Rental
James R’s review of the Gielgud Theatre

Everyone loves free cake, so Kat and I have decided that we’re going to extend this competition to the whole BView community. The BView member who Kat decides writes the best review of her chosen topic will get their very own cake.

Kat’s got pretty high standards (so she tells me) and will be judging the reviews she receives on these criteria:

Depth of detail
Humour and entertainment value
Relevant photos
Interesting title

The first topic Kat has chosen for the inaugural BView Community Cake Challenge is… Travel.

This is quite a broad category, so your review could be for travel agents, airlines, hotels, a train company or anything else you can think of. When you submit your review make sure you enter Kat’s e-mail address in the “E-mail this review to a friend” box (kathryn.neville@bview.com) or get in contact through her profile page.

You’ve got until midnight on Friday 5th September to submit your cake winning entry and you can enter as many times as you want. Kat will announce the winner on our blog the following week. If you win, we might even let you choose the cake… but that’s up to Kat. The top three reviewers also get a little prize from Kat – but I can’t tell you what, it’s a surprise.

It’s serious now, there’s a cake at stake. No excuses… get reviewing!

Posted in Announcements, Competitions | 2 Comments »

BView BBQ

Monday, August 11th, 2008

Last Friday, after a few beers at our local generic city pub it was off to Brad’s place in Hackney for a few more drinks and a BBQ. Brad laid on some excellent food (the barbecued Salmon was first class) and there were ample supplies of beer and wine to keep up as all happy. It was a great evening, and big thanks to Brad for letting us all invade his flat for the evening – when’s the next one?

Once the BBQ was over, a few of us headed over to a great bar in Soho to continue to our evening’s entertainment. We finally called it a night sometime in the early hours of Saturday. I’d have to say that the next days hangover was definitely worth it.

I’ve added a few pictures of some of the BView staff to our Flickr page.

Posted in Events | Comments Off

Refer your friends and get upto £50 to spend at Amazon

Friday, August 1st, 2008

BView’s Amazon rewards scheme was a massive success in July. And it’s definitely kept me busy! It’s really starting to show how useful and informative a committed community of reviewers can be. In July we had loads of new members, added thousands and thousands of reviews (I started counting to give you an exact figure, by lost my way and can’t face starting again), and we sent out thousands of pounds worth of Amazon vouchers.

We’ve still got plenty of space on BView and want our community to be even bigger (and better, naturally) than everywhere else, we’re well on our way to our goal of being the definitive source of business reviews in the UK but we won’t get there without your help. We want you to share BView with your friends and family. If they’re as well informed as our current members, then we’d love to have them on board!

To give you a bit of an incentive, we’ll reward you with a £10 Amazon voucher for every 5 new users you invite to BView who go on to write 20 qualifying reviews for un-reviewed businesses. Your new members get a £10 voucher for their reviewing efforts as well!

How does it work?

Login to your BView account and find the “Invite Friends” link on your “My Account” page
Choose where you want to invite your friends from. You can contact you friends directly through LinkedIn or Facebook, or access your webmail address book. If it’s easier, just enter their e-mail addresses directly
When they sign up by using the link in the invitation message, you’ll automatically be following each other. This way you’ll get updates when they write reviews (and prod them if they’re falling short of their voucher!)
When 5 users you invite hit the magic number of qualifying reviews (that’s 20), let me know and I’ll send out your voucher.
Head over to Amazon.co.uk and go shopping!

That’s all there is too it!

This offer is limited to 5 vouchers of £10 (£50 in total) and is valid in August only.

Posted in Announcements, Competitions | 1 Comment »

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