Regardless of size or industry, businesses rely upon feedback from customers to continue to refine and reframe their deliverables, in order to keep buyers coming back for more. Yet, more often than not, customers opt not to take up their qualms with the businesses themselves, but rather to serve up their whining contempt for a dish or a service on Yelp, or similar pages.
However, such review sites pose a problems to business and consumers alike. The “all press is good press” motto doesn’t quite hold true for companies getting slammed by consumers. Word-of-mouth marketing is a dangerous game. The process isn’t easy for buyers, either. Leaving reviews takes effort, effort that is often only spurred by a particularly sour experience, resulting in a unsurprisingly scathing comment and receiving nothing in return but their own smugness.
“When you have a high demand for the product, it scales, but one negative public review can cost your business thousands of dollars. You need to be able to contact your customers before they go to Yelp,” Gopinion Co-founder and CEO Joe Tagliente told BostInno.
Colby College-spun startup Gopinion hopes to change that by simplifying the feedback loop for businesses and incentivizing buyers with a gift they can claim on the spot.
Via the GPS-powered, free Gopinion app, users submit what Tagliente calls private, patented “micro-surveys” – four swipe-to-respond questions in areas customized to the type of business, such as food, staff service, value and facility, along with a text box for commenting. Each survey takes less than 20-seconds to submit, according to Tagliente, making the process painless.
Each time a user submits a survey, he or she receives an instantly redeemable gift. Be it a coupon for a percentage off or a free burger, the ability to cash in the prize in the moment, without the hassle of accumulating points, is quite the carrot for consumers.
“People want to be treated like customers, not like data points,” noted Tagliente.
The net result: Businesses receive private, valuable feedback and increased customer loyalty, while users are rewarded with free swag from their favorite stops.
Tagliente and his friends and Co-founders Katie Muto and Chris Muto broke ground on Gopinion in 2012. At the time, Tagliente and Muto were in their junior years at Colby College and Duke University, respectively. Tagliente’s father, Joe, who has in-depth knowledge of the hospitality and quick service industries, also serves as the startup’s COO.
With the established industry ties from Tagliente Sr., Gopinion has had the opportunity to secure partnerships with over 200 Boston businesses, like Burger King restaurants, Dependable Cleaners dry cleaning chain, Harvard University Dining Services and Flour Bakery + Café, at a rate of $30 per month. However, Gopinion has received interest from businesses and chains in other cities, including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and hopes to expand into additional locations in the coming year.
They are, however, still iterating upon the current version of the Gopinion app to find a model they can scale upon. The company had 1,000 alpha users and 15 businesses over the summer, and launched the beta version of the app in early October. By February 2014, Tagliente says the team plans on delivering 100 individual opinions per month to participating businesses.
Gopinion is currently bootstrapped, but may become open to investment later down along the line, admitted Tagliente.
