When companies listen to the internet

The Cluetrain Manifesto makes one thing clear - the internet empowers communication, and it’s up to business to listen. The days of dictating consumer opinion is over.

The interesting point to watch for is how many companies are listening.

I’ve had a couple of incidents recently where I’ve been contacted by a company responding to comments I’ve posted about them online.

Usually, these communications seek to clarify misunderstandings, or even address concerns raised.

As I had my head deep in the UK property market for the past year, I thought to start a property forum dealing with my property search experiences and inviting a community experience.

One particular company I posted about - Manorlane Homes - I slated for for having a user-unfriendly website built in Flash.

Some links didn’t work, some of the house descriptions were confusing - and there wasn’t even a contact page.

Interestingly enough, representatives from Manor Lane came aboard the forums and helped try to address some of the issues I raised.

Some links simply were not active because the developments were not yet open; the house descriptions were confusing because, without visiting a property, I’d misunderstood the layout.

And they set up a contact page with a phone number and email contact.

Tonight the company raised concerns in private about the impact my impressions may have had - being a SEO naturally I’ve given such discussions key search engine visibility.

I felt it only fair to then re-edit my comments in the thread to accomodate the fact that I’d misunderstood some issues, and the company had addressed some concerns in other areas.

Point is - Manorlane were listening to the internet, and in seeing potential misunderstandings about their company, sought to address them through dialogue.

It’s simply unfortunate that too many of the bigger corporations aren’t doing this - I’d love to have representatives from companies such as British Telecom and Comet address my own severely poor customer experiences.

As the impact of the internet on business grows ever bigger, perhaps one day even the corporates will begin to listen, too.