Asking for feedback?

Ok so i wanted to know what you guys think of asking your customers, after the transaction has been completed successfully and to the satisfaction of both parties, to leave you feedback. Either a trader rating or a post on the BOI. Some customers do not know about these options, they just know you can buy reptiles on this site. Some don't even know what the BOI is. So is it bad ethics to ask your customers to leave you feedback according to how they felt about the transaction?

It's sort of onesided opinion-wise if you only ask them after a deal is done and has gone well.

IF you tell them, prior to any transaction even beginning, and that's the tough part, that you'd like to be rated and where you'd like to be rated and then let that customer decide whether or not to make that opinion public, it would have more validity.

well for me i think it's it perfectly fine to ask to leave some sort of feed back .when i made my first purchase on here i had no clue to the trade rating let alone the BOI ,and once the transaction was complete the other party mentioned about leaving feed back ,if it was not for him i would have had no idea ,and to be honest i would feel alittle more comfortable with doing bussiness with someone that informed me about the feed back option

I ususally wont directly ask for feedback, while i DO appreciate it and would like it, i dont require it. I especially like good guy posts :P

I will say that, hey im leaving feedback for you on fauna! and usually they return the favor :P

My personal opinion is that requesting a customer to post to a good guy thread is overly solicitous and in poor taste.
Trader ratings can only be given by contributing members, so asking anybody else to do so would require them to pay...how would you respond if John Q Somebody asked you to pay money just to report on a transaction with him. The easiest way to solicit a trader rating from a member is to provide one, lol; though it is not a guarantee that it will be returned.
I frequently include links to my BOI threads, trader rating, and GCC poll if I am asked for references - this makes them aware of things here, and they can comment after the deal if they so choose.

Personally, I never mention any aspect of Fauna, the BOI or its tools (trader ratings, Good guy threads, etc) to my customers or potential customers. It has nothing to do with the business at hand so I dont see the point in it. Unless they are asking for references, then I will invite them to inquire on the BOI about me as well as providing references.

If a high dollar purchase or special order has been made I like to follow up with an email or phone call to make sure they were completely happy with the entire transaction. As long as I know they are happy that is good enough for me.

As much as I would like to initiate a follow up on every $30 order I get, I just dont have the time to do so. But I sure hope that any customer that is not 100% happy or has suggestions would contact me regardless of how small of a problem/issue they may have.

Originally Posted by shrap

Personally, I never mention any aspect of Fauna, the BOI or its tools (trader ratings, Good guy threads, etc) to my customers or potential customers. It has nothing to do with the business at hand so I dont see the point in it. Unless they are asking for references, then I will invite them to inquire on the BOI about me as well as providing references.

If a high dollar purchase or special order has been made I like to follow up with an email or phone call to make sure they were completely happy with the entire transaction. As long as I know they are happy that is good enough for me.

As much as I would like to initiate a follow up on every $30 order I get, I just dont have the time to do so. But I sure hope that any customer that is not 100% happy or has suggestions would contact me regardless of how small of a problem/issue they may have.

I like that Shrap. A follow up call is really cool and a really nice thing to do on larger orders :P

I always make it a point to leave a Trader Rating here for everyone that I have a deal with, assuming of course, they are a member here. If I feel that someone has gone above and beyond as a customer, I may make a Good Guy post as well.

However, there is never any mention of this to the customer, either before or after the sale, and if they feel compelled to leave a rating for me, that's completely up to them.

I personally think it is bad form to request it. Your behavior during the transaction should stand on it's own merits.

Exactly Mike!!!

Originally Posted by shrap

Personally, I never mention any aspect of Fauna, the BOI or its tools (trader ratings, Good guy threads, etc) to my customers or potential customers. It has nothing to do with the business at hand so I dont see the point in it. Unless they are asking for references, then I will invite them to inquire on the BOI about me as well as providing references.

If a high dollar purchase or special order has been made I like to follow up with an email or phone call to make sure they were completely happy with the entire transaction. As long as I know they are happy that is good enough for me.

As much as I would like to initiate a follow up on every $30 order I get, I just dont have the time to do so. But I sure hope that any customer that is not 100% happy or has suggestions would contact me regardless of how small of a problem/issue they may have.

Shrap, this is not meant as a personal attack, its more of an observation on the practice of follow-up calls in general. Yours just happened to be the post I chose to respond to.

How much time would it really take to sit down and send off an email a few weeks after the deal to any who bought a snake. I would assume that if there were any online communications you would have the email address of the buyer handy somewhere. To me you do it with all or you do it with none. To have a arbitrary dollar amount set for a follow-up message sort of tells me who the important ones are. If I buy a $30.00 snake its not an important enough sale for you to inquire if I am happy or not, but if its a $300.00 snake you will contact me. Besides, if I buy a $30.00 snake from you and I am not happy, I'll most likely not bother you, I'll just never do business with you again. I won't go out of my way to bad mouth you but if someone asks I'll certainly tell them my experiences. If you send me an email a few weeks after I buy the $30.00 snake and ask If I am happy and I am not I'll let you know and if you fix the problem, great, I might deal with you again. If its a $300.00 snake and I'm not happy you can bet your behind I'll be in contact with you. So, in a way, follow-ups on lesser sales may do much more to fend off potential bad publicity that the follow-up on an expensive snake.


Just some observations and a few things to think about.