Customer Lobby
Customer Lobby is a web-based reviews company for service-based businesses. Based in Berkeley, California, the company was founded by Ted Paff in the effort to create a comprehensive reviews solution for services businesses in the burgeoning Web 2.0 environment. Customer Lobby provides a service and corresponding web software to clients to get, manage and publish customer reviews. Its system allows clients to proactively invite end-customers for reviews, verify their authenticity before publishing, and correspond with consumers to manage negative reviews. Customer Lobby is currently the only customer reviews company that conducts call-based reviews as a component of its service.
Products and services
In response to the significant impact that online reviews can have on a business, Customer Lobby's core product incorporates a set of tools that enable service businesses to acquire, manage, and publish reviews. Reviews are a popular type of user-generated content that web users tend to research before making offline purchase decisions. Due to the relative difficulty for service-based business to obtain online reviews, businesses may use Customer Lobby to proactively reach out to their clients for reviews via email. In addition, exclusive to Customer Lobby is Customer Call, whereby businesses obtain phone-based reviews from targeted customers in order to guarantee regular and updated reviews. Other popular features include featured reviews, private feedback, and the ability for businesses to respond to reviews publicly.
Customer Lobby generates revenue from membership fees. Memberships are on a month-to-month basis. Consequently, clients' reviews pages are free from advertising and competitive offers.
Review Process
To proliferate authentic reviews of businesses, the review process has three stages: Acquisition, Management, and Publication. Reviews accrue from three sources: First, businesses can proactively invite their clients via email to submit a review. Second, businesses may choose to have Customer Lobby do a call-based review. Finally, a client may submit an unsolicited review of the company directly from the Web.
Once submitted, a review enters a queue for verification. Hitherto, verification of authentic reviews has been the principle pathology in user-generated content. Businesses have a 10-day period to PREview reviews before being published on the Web. They may publish valid reviews immediately. In the instances of invalid reviews (e.g. reviews from non-clients, competitors, or disgruntled ex-employees), the business can use the system to challenge the review. In this event, Customer Lobby contacts the reviewer to indicate proof of service transaction. Non-compliant reviews are terminated after 10-days. In the instances of a valid but challenging review, businesses may use the opportunity to contact the reviewer in question to RESOLVE the issue and retain them for future business. If resolved, the reviewer may withdraw the original review. Published reviews may also be challenged by Web visitors by flagging the reviews. As a independent entity, Customer Lobby contacts the end reviewer for proof of service. The goal of these processes is to both maximize consumer satisfaction, business-consumer relations, and business reputation management.
After a review has been verified or 10 days have lapsed, the review publishes in two locations. First, each review publishes as an independent web page that indexes in organic search results. The result has visible stars that indicate the overall review rating next to the heading of the listing. Second, the review is aggregated with the business' other reviews and linked to the business' website. As opposed to a self-published testimonial, the reviews are hosted by a 3rd party in the effort to confer independent credibility.