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Customer / Provider arbitration?
I've seen way too many instances of customers coming here to complain about a provider, then the provider shows up to defend themselves, and before you know it, it basically degenerates into "You're a shitty provider, you suck", "No you're a shitty unreasonable customer", back and forth for dozens of posts. Honestly, it makes everyone involved look bad, and, as far as I know, LET wasn't meant for that kind of stuff. In my opinion, it hurts the entire community.
Maybe we need some kind of arbitration process or something like that, where a neutral third party can help the customer and provider come to an agreement that they can both live with, without people being assholes about the whole thing. I suppose it would sort of be like the Better Business Bureau, but solely for low end providers.
This is just a rough idea of how it would work. The overall point is, there's got to be a better way for customers to air their grievances with a provider and resolve these kinds of disputes. We obviously can't force providers or customers to use it, but I think if something like it were available, maybe people would use it, and maybe, just maybe, everyone could just all get along. What do you guys think?
Comments
@NickM it's done the same at WHT
Excellent idea but unfortunately I don't think it would get much use because if a company is willing to attack a client then they are probably not willing to even consider a compromise.
@KuJoe, while it would be great if every VPS company's CEO/owner/representative was able to keep their emotions in check, I can at least understand that when a former customer comes here throwing around insults in their first post about the issue, it can be difficult for the provider to keep a level head - the natural instinct is to fight back and defend yourself. And I can understand why a former customer might do it that way - they know that if they come out guns blazing, everyone is going to pay attention them. I think a more civilized option, where they know they won't simply be ignored, is necessary.
We should all monitor the discussions and if anyone is rude or calls anyone a name, we all jump on them. No matter who it is. Everyone will start having to be nicer.
Let's start with you.
I like it.
I could go both ways on this. On one hand, I love the arbitration idea. On the other... one of my criteria for choosing a provider is to search for any negative post/reviews. Partially to see what kind of issues there were... but primarily to see how the provider reacted, responded, and resolved the situation. That's one of the biggest determining factors in my choices.
Well, maybe if LEA only showed LEB offers from providers who use this service - it would help. But still - Who is gonna run this service?
Well, like the BBB, I figure complaints, the provider's response, and the resolution would be publicly listed on a page for each provider. This way, it would kind of serve in both the providers and customers interests - good providers can use it to show off their customer service, bad providers won't participate, and potential customers get to see not only how often there are problems with a provider, but how well (or poorly) the provider handled it.
I agree 100% with all of these things.
The problem I see with this idea is that here are no enforceable consequences unless The Triumvirate are willing to not list providers who don't participate, which I don't think will happen.
Otherwise you just end up with good providers doing what they would have done anyway, just with extra hand holding, and bad providers just ignore the service.
We should exile all the "bad" providers.
Which leads to the problem of who gets to decide who's "bad" and whether it's based on the empirical and quantifiable, or just a popularity contest where the prick everyone hates gets banished from the island.
Well obviously if one bad comment is made about a provider they must be terrible and must be exiled.
Everyone but you seems content with keeping discussion of your customer complaint(s) in the thread that already exists. I would cordially ask you to consider doing the same. It's hard to complain that everyone is piling on you when you seem to want to go into every thread and poke them with sticks.
The consequence is, when people search for information about the provider, their "profile" page (for lack of a better term) shows up in Google's results, and lists all of the complaints against them. If people see a lot of complaints that don't get resolved, or even just a ton of problems in general, or see that a provider just ignores the service, that's going to influence their decision about purchasing, at least, in theory.
A site, where a customer (or provider) writes his complaint. After the second part of the conflict replies, a page divided by a vertical line appears and each part has a button "this part is right" and a box to comment. Each part of the conflict can reply to the comment (but only 1 reply each part per comment).
A rating with providers with biggest number of (all issues minus "the client is right") on a separate page.
If the second part of the conflict does not reply in 3 days, it loses.
If someone makes a design, I can code that. Or code by yourself and give me 20% of you income from ads for the idea.
Ah, okay, I see more what you mean now. So it's not just about arbitration, it's a complete system for leaving feedback and whatnot. Doesn't LET sort of provide that right now anyway? I guess it'd be different though having it sorted with pages for each provider and whatnot.
Sorry, I must have missed the part where that bit got elaborated. I'm back and forth with a four month old, so my brain cells are scattered.
@Soylent, who is poking? I'm agreeing with you. Thought we could agree on something today.
My personal point of view is that a thread on the forum is enought, as any one should be smarter enough to decide who trust.
However:
If is a scammer it have 3 more days to scam people simply avoiding to reply?
Also a single complain isn't enough to decide. Seems to me that threads about a (bad) provider bring other customers to post their experiences.
In your example I think that the vote part should be avaliable since the start and after someone reply should be possible to change the vote.
Also should aggregate other customers experiences (maybe approved from an admin before displaying them).
IMAO, ofc.
Yep. Any better suggestions?
A bigger problem is to make providers visit that site and reply to such kind of posts.
I agree that an arbitration would be a good thing, but for what I've seen on this forum flames start too soon and trolls came as bears to honey
The arbitrator would play an important role here, she should have enough autority and tools to make things not to degenerate... Maybe a committee..
@NickM didn't you know if you're a bad customer you should be lucky to get a refund ...