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Steve Dow
The Age
August 5, 2002
Page 2 Money Manager
WHEN it comes to complaining, Australians lack skill. Perhaps it's the British component of our heritage - we'll moan about a meal or the service to friends but when confronted by the person responsible, we'll demure. "Ooo yes, it's very nice, thank you".
Melbourne business consultant and researcher Fiona Stewart says the only nationalities less skilled at complaining about bad business transactions are the Japanese and New Zealanders.
She wants to encourage Australians to develop a more effective consumer culture of complaint. And to make it easier, she's established an Internet site, www.NotGoodEnough.org.
Most mornings, from 6am, Ms Stewart can be found in South Yarra home office, encouraging Australians to have a whinge. It's a 7 day a week job.
Anyone can sign up free of charge and post their complaint. But www.NotGoodEnough.org does more than just allow subscribers to let off steam; it provides feedback to the businesses being complained about.
Ms Stewart says many people are concerned that no one will listen to their complaint and nothing will be done.
But she says using the Internet to analyse feedback and pass it on to companies seemed a "win win and something other whinge sites stopped short of doing."
The site has dozens of topics to help consumers streamline their complaints.
Ms Stewart and her backers fund the site by selling access to the information. In this first phase, www.NotGoodEnough.org is developing a fee-based search function for the site that allows companies access to consumer feedback.
In phase 2, the company expects to produce research reports, again using feedback.
Each weekend, Ms Stewart compiles a list of the 10 most complained about companies for the week, which is posted on the site on Wednesday.
Permission is always sought from the complainant to pass on personal details to a company and quite often the company asks to speak to the person. "The answer is almost always yes" says Ms Stewart.
She says the website is effective on 2 levels: "Traditionally, customer feedback has been a one to one process" she says. "But … online you doin'g just tell the company, you're also telling all other users of the site. Given our traffic is nearly at 100 000 visits since March, this is a lot of people".
And then there's adverse publicity. The companies attracting the most complaints are banks (usually the Commonwealth) and Telstra.
There are also a lot of insurance-based claims - particularly about car insurance - as well as faulty or lemon cars. Lack of after-sales service is another hot area, with all the electrical companies named.
Furniture manufacturers are also named disproportionately on the site.
AAMI is perhaps the company quickest to respond to complaints. Small to medium-size enterprises are usually the worst.
Ms Stewart says smaller companies do not see the feedback "as an opportunity to learn and improve their business but as a personal attack on their integrity. They adopt a head in sand approach".
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Log On and Key In Your Complaint
NT News
July 25, 2002
Page 7
One of Australia's newest consumer websites has recorded 95 000 hits since its launch 5 months ago.
And 2 Territory firms have made their way onto www.NotGoodEnough.org which logs complaints from consumers.
Found Fiona Stewart created the website after being stranded at Brisbane airport after Ansett collapsed last September.
She was in Darwin this week to promote the website.
Ms Stewart said a Darwin fast food chain came in for criticism as the toilets and staff were not up to scratch.
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Karen Collier
Herald Sun & Sunday Mail
July 13 & 14 2002
Pages 7 & 18 respectively
A pizza lover got more than a mouthful from a home delivery. Jacqui Passmore of Cabooluture, north of Brisbane, nearly choked when she saw the comment "wanker" printed below her name and address on a receipt.
Cheesed off, Ms Passmore boycotted her local store after the rude compuer-generated receipt arrived.
She believed the offensive remark was directed at her and did not mince words with her reaction.
"The more I have thought about it the more my blood boils. It is quite humiliating" she said.
Ms Passmore (not the cookbook author Jacki Passmore) said her family had pizzas from their local outlet almost every weekend for 2 years and had complained several times aboutr the wrong toppings or thickness.
The mother of three said she was floored to sumble across the invoice, which included the words "wanker" and "always thin base".
Pizza Haven's national office has apologised and fired off a "please explain" letter to the franchise store.
Regional business development manager Stan Szczypiorski said the matter would be investigated and pledged "butts will be kicked".
Ms Passmore has been stewing over the receipt since June last year. She blew the whistle on the consumer website www.notgoodenough.org.
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The New Rules of Service
By Emily Ross
BRW
Pages 52-58
The commitment of Westpac to 'winning back the respect of customers' in a climate of bank-bashing ran into trouble on September 12 last year, the day Ansett Australia went into receivership. With the airline's demise went 600,000 Westpac Global Rewards customers' frequent-flier points. The bank's general manager of marketing, Peter Hanlon, was facing a public relations nightmare. 'Luckily, banks are very good at managing crises,' he says. Hanlon's team quickly wrote scripts for the call centre to explain the situation to customers, extra call centre staff were rostered on, and Hanlon began researching a new loyalty program. Hanlon says the research found that existing loyalty programs were lacking, and that customers wanted more in return for their loyalty.
The Westpac Altitude card was launched in December 2001, offering customers a more flexible range of rewards, keeping the 'one point for one dollar' deal, and adding benefits such as the option to top up points totals with cash to get rewards faster, and the ability to fly with 90% of the world's airlines. Five months later, National Australia Bank (NAB) announced it was devaluing its Gold Visa Rewards scheme by reducing the value of frequent-flier points from 'one for one' to 'one for one-and-a-half'. Consumer groups criticised NAB, and federal Treasurer Peter Costello told unhappy customers to switch to another bank. NAB did an about-face and the higher conversion rate now applies only to points accrued after July 31, 2002. Westpac quickly ran new ads promoting Altitude. ANZ Banking Group also ran ads to capitalise on NAB's blunder. 'Now we've increased our market share,' says Hanlon.
Westpac has a simple goal, says Hanlon. 'We want to be the number-one service organisation. We aren't there yet, but you've got to have a goal,' he says. 'We need to think more like customers than like bankers.' That means initiatives such as longer opening hours in some banks in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth; talking automated teller machines, which are being tested in Melbourne and Sydney; and the introduction last year of a customer advocacy team. All the initiatives are designed to win back the respect of customers.
The customer-is-king ethos is not new. The United States retail giant Wal-Mart Stores built a 4400-store retail empire based on the philosophy of the 10-foot rule - that is, if a customer is that close, smile and serve them. The past decade has brought a revolution in customer service, with more recognition, more loyalty programs and a stronger customer focus. Ten years ago, according to the annual Eye on Australia research study conducted by Sweeney Research and the advertising agency Grey Worldwide, 66% of respondents said they would pay more for good service. In the 2002 study, 84% of respondents were prepared to pay for a higher level of service.
'The (customer service) game hasn't really started yet,' the chairman and chief executive of Forrester Research, George Colony, told Fast Company magazine in September 2001. 'It's still totally underdeveloped. We're still sitting at campfires, dressed in loincloths, chewing on bones. It's very primitive stuff.'
After 10 years of trying to improve customer service standards, what happens now in the consumer economy? Continuous improvement. Smart companies are constantly searching for ways to keep their customers happy and loyal. In some cases, that means remodelling their businesses to improve the customers' experience. The new rules of customer service, such as creating an efficient complaint-resolution system and using technology to improve customer service rather than to cut costs, apply in most industries, including retailing, telecommunications, utilities, financial services and health care.
What makes customers happy? Customers love to be recognised and respected. They want a good, efficient, satisfying experience when dealing with a company. They want the company to fulfil its promises - to live up to the hype. They like service to be personalised, professional and to have a favorable result. If something goes wrong, customers want their complaints to be heard and responded to, or they will go elsewhere.
If an American Express platinum card member needs something done, they can ring the company's concierge service. Last year, the service received a call from a British card holder who was concerned that he might feel lonely while travelling through Russia. 'He asked for an English-speaking parrot,' says the senior vice-president and managing director of American Express Australia/South Pacific, John Steward. 'We found one.' Another platinum member asked for a vial of sand from the Dead Sea for his daughter's school project. American Express delivered. 'If it is legal and moral and ethical, we'll do it,' Steward says. (American Express platinum card holders pay an annual membership fee of $900, compared with $65 for the green card and $95 for the gold card.) 'Service is built into the DNA around here,' he says.
"We want to be the number-one service organisation ... We need to think more like customers than like bankers."
American Express' 1.5 million customers in Australia range from multinational companies to backpackers. Not all can expect concierge-level service, but they can, says Steward, expect recognition and flexibility. 'We want them to feel special and respected.'
The American Express pitch to customers is that it aims to be the world's most respected service brand. Steward argues that it already has a better relationship with its members than other financial institutions because there is no pre-set spending limit. 'Our customers are not banging their heads against a limit, which is important.' The company is also trying to be more flexible in meeting the needs of customers. 'We have some customers who will pay (their bills) consistently but late,' he says. 'We would never speak to those customers in terms of 'Are you sure you can pay?' but rather try to work with them to pay on time. We have to recognise their needs.'
Technology is helping American Express increase its personalised service. Its phone system includes technology that can automatically direct callers to the right representative (based on the card number typed into the phone) instead of handballing them through different divisions. The customer service representative has all the customer data on screen when the call arrives. The software also tracks customer calls and can categorise and analyse data, and chart trends. 'The technology really helps,' says Steward. 'We use it to make the service more personal.'
American Express may have great service but it is a long way behind Visa and MasterCard in terms of market share. This does not concern Steward: 'American Express has established a strong position within our various target markets by offering a range of products and services that are clearly differentiated from the competition. We know that the more successful we are in doing this, the more our market share will grow, but we are not focused on market share as an end in itself. Our focus needs to stay on the customer.'
"If it is legal and moral and ethical, we'll do it. Service is built into the DNA around here."
Two years ago, Freedom Group was a long way from best practice with its customer service. The front end of the business was performing well, but customers were not always happy after they had ordered their new furniture. The homewares retailer had an Achilles' heel. The company's retail stores were designed to encourage people to spend. But customers ran into problems when checking on the progress of their orders. They found calling a Freedom store a frustrating experience because store staff had to track down how an order was progressing. Rod Walker, the managing director of Freedom, admits the company often underestimated the technical difficulties and staff resources required to provide good service from end to end.
After talking for seven years about the need for a national call centre, Freedom finally opened one in December 2000. The call centre operates seven days a week, handling orders and product queries on the more than 15,000 items sold in Freedom stores. 'It gives us the opportunity to deal with the customer in a controlled environment,' says Walker. 'There are no distractions.'
Staff at the call centre, in North Sydney, are paid above-award wages. Call-centre operators have product information on screen and can track orders instantly. Walker says it is hard to put an exact figure on the effect of the call centre on the business, but sales for the first half of this financial year were up 7.3% and have continued to rise in the second half.
The company measures the success of the centre by the number of calls it receives, the amount of time it takes to process a call and the speed of the complaints/inquiry process. 'There has been significant improvement,' says Walker.
A key to improving customer service is improving the way complaints are handled. 'The complaint is a gift,' says Neill Buck, the managing director of the consulting firm Neill Buck & Associates. Over the past five years, Buck has conducted workshops with 120 companies on complaints handling, dispute resolution and customer service, helping companies adhere to the Australian standard on complaints handling. The standard was set by an industry committee and was published by the Australian Standards Association in February 1995.
'Companies need to collect complaint data and take advantage of the information,' Buck says. 'The information is essential to find out what is best practice, to map the process of the customer transaction and to identify the triggers for complaint, not just react to it.' He says companies should encourage customers to complain. 'If they won't complain, they will go somewhere else.'
Companies need to create a great complaint experience for customers. According to the September 2001 national complaints culture survey, a study of Australian companies conducted by the consulting firm TMI Australia, Australian consumers are complaining more than ever. How a company handles a complaint is critical to a brand's reputation. Ninety-six per cent of customers say they would buy again from a company if a complaint was handled properly. Sixty-six per cent would not return if the complaint was handled badly. According to the survey, 47% of people prefer to use the telephone to make a complaint, but there has been a 300% increase in the use of the internet and e-mail for complaints.
The internet is a thriving forum for customer complaints. To some companies, 'gripe sites' are a gold mine of important information about customers; others see them as simply a place for crackpots to whinge. At the Web site www.notgoodenough.org, people complain about wobbly chairs, the price of apricot scrubs, direct debiting mistakes, the non-arrival of lingerie ordered online, and myriad other problems.
Communications sociologist Fiona Stewart was inspired to create the site late last year, when she was stuck in transit. The Qantas airline lounge was a mess, the check-in service was 'rude' and, she says, no one gave a damn. 'It just wasn't good enough.' She started hunting around on the Web for consumer complaint sites, such as Untied.com (an anti-United Airlines site) and she got the idea for www.notgoodenough.org, a public forum to empower the consumer. Stewart believes that if enough people use the site, companies will have to take note. The site was set up in March this year and already has 5500 registered users on its database, and has received 60,000 visitors, ranging in age from 13 to 95.
Prime targets for gripes at www.notgoodenough.org include Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, internet service providers and public transport and insurance companies. Consumers' complaints include shoddy treatment from an insurer over car repairs, bank errors, rude telephone sales people and any number of unresolved consumer disputes. One complainant had no luck getting her car repaired properly but, after lodging her complaint with www.notgoodenough.org, she heard back from the insurer the same day. Stewart wades through all the complaints posted each week and picks 10 'key gripes' to investigate. She takes up a consumer's complaint with a company to see if she can get a resolution. 'Some companies just don't get it,' she says. 'When I call, they say I've just fabricated the complaint and that I'm trying to destroy companies.'
Stewart sees www.notgoodenough.org as a site for resolutions, as a bridge between companies and consumers. So far, the 15-hour days spent developing www.notgoodenough.org have not produced any revenue for Stewart (she is living off her savings), but she is ready to move into phase two of her business plan. Companies will be offered an automated e-mail service notifying them when their company is mentioned on the site. Stewart plans to charge about $100 a week for the service, and says Suncorp Metway, Telstra, AAMI and Centrelink have expressed interest in subscribing.
'The thing that has surprised me since I started the site is the sheer number of people who have tried to be heard by companies and haven't been successful,' says Stewart. 'Companies need to understand the PR mileage they can get from dealing with, or being seen to be dealing with, customer feedback. They don't understand the power of an independent third party.
'The internet is a perfect medium for customer service feedback because it is an environment that encourages disclosure,' says Stewart. One drawback is that it is hard to regulate the information. Stewart recently found herself in a newspaper gossip column after a fake letter was sent to her site about faulty toys from a sex shop. She posted the complaint on her Web site and began to campaign on behalf of the consumer, until it was revealed to be a hoax. An apology was quickly posted on the site. The shop is not expected to take any action.
On the other hand, www.notgoodenough.org posted the gripe of a man who was clearly not fond of telemarketers and received a call from a representative of the pay-television company Foxtel. The conversation ended with the telemarketer swearing at the potential customer. The Foxtel representative then called the man back several times that night, leaving on-hold music for him to listen to. Foxtel investigated the complaint; the allegations were confirmed through phone records. Foxtel will not comment about the incident except to say that the telemarketer, who works for SalesForce, the company that manages the majority of Foxtel's telemarketing and door-to-door sales, has been disciplined and that the call centre's strategy is under review.
Stewart says: 'The lesson to be learnt, and what is to be gained from www.notgoodenough.org, is that you can use a so-called bad news story to show customers that you listen, that you care and that you are willing to change the way you do business to become more efficient. If you create a brand that says x, and if you don't deliver on the expectation of x, then you are bound for trouble. Strong brand equity is about meeting expectations and, in the long run, creating customers who become your advocates.'
One company on www.notgoodenough.org's list of organisations that do not respond to customer complaints is the online auction company eBay Australia. It rejects the claim that it handles complaints badly. The community development officer, Kaye Dewar, says: 'At eBay, 100% of complaints are answered unless they are spam.'
But customers who call eBay for service hear a recorded message telling them to go online to receive help. Why does the company not have a telephone service? 'All of our members are online,' says Dewar. 'The information that we need to convey is best conveyed online.' The company tested telephone support in the United States for six months in 2001, but found that queries took up to six times as long to manage.
Dewar says she is not entirely satisfied with eBay's level of service. EBay is developing a 'one click away' system that puts the help information in a little window on screen so that it does not take over the whole browser. 'This new system involves reviewing every part of the site,' says Dewar. The company's Australian customer service centre handles about 20,000 queries a month and aims for a response time of 15 hours.
According to an online survey conducted recently by Jupiter Media Metrix in the United States, no one is doing a great job at online customer service. The survey of 225 Web sites in retail, travel, financial services and business-to-business categories found that online retailers fare best, beating travel companies and corporate Web sites. Twenty-five per cent of people surveyed said they never received a reply to a query lodged with an online customer service centre. Why does a company offer a service it does not intend to fulfil? Communication breakdowns within the organisation can be the excuse but, ultimately, says Les Johnson, the dean of Mount Eliza Business School, companies are being foolish. 'They want to be seen to be responsive, that's all.'
Studies consistently show that customers want to be able to communicate with companies in different ways. 'A lot of companies are adopting new technology for the wrong reasons,' says Johnson. 'Companies should adopt technology because it improves customer service, not to save money.' He says the software industry has oversold the customer service revolution. 'They are really selling automation, not customer service.'
At Virgin Mobile call centres, staff have the authority to resolve problems themselves. Being able to issue credits immediately means that many problems are solved by the first Virgin Mobile staff member a customer contacts. If the issue is too complex, it is referred to a team leader. If the team leader cannot resolve it, it goes to the managing director, Andrew Grant, who handles up to five complaints a week.
At American Express, customer representatives are able to give, for example, temporary credit if a credit charge is disputed. 'That takes care of the immediate need,' says Steward, and the company then investigates the problem. Card holders are also given a deadline for when they will hear back from American Express about the disputed charges. Neill Buck says: 'Companies shouldn't be afraid of customer complaints. Complaints equal free market research.'
Johnson, who has an open-door policy for students at the Mount Eliza Business School, says: 'If there is something wrong, I want to know, because the worst thing in the world is to lose your customers and to not know why. Change must come from the top. If companies are just selling a product, it is pretty easy for someone else to copy that product. The only thing to really differentiate yourself with is customer service.' Buck agrees: 'Senior executives and the board should regularly access complaints information and look for continuous improvements. It is not just information for the firefighters.'
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Consumer Website Takes off
The Advocate
22 June 2002
Page 9
In the four months since it was launched, Australia's new consumer website www.NotGoodEnough.org has recorded 67 000 visits from disgruntled consumers.
The idea for the website was conceived after its founder Fiona Stewart was stranded at Brisbane Airport when Ansett collapsed last September.
Now Dr Stewart describes herself as Australia's most passionate consumer crusader.
"We knew that people wanted their voices to be heard but we didn't know how effective the Internet would be in allowing people to have their say", Dr Stewart said.
She also said Tasmanian companies, including a Devonport restaurant, had been listed on the site.
Dr Stewart is in Tasmania this week promoting the website.
"Some companies thank us for performing a community service and want to know exactly what the complaint against them is and then follow it up, others do the head in the sand approach and think we are trying to wreck their business" she said.
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Having a good old net whinge helps
Danielle Wood
The Mercury
21 June 2002
Page 37
Since the customer is always right, Melbourne communications sociologist Fiona Stewart must have just about the most correct website on the Internet.
Dr Stewart's answer to poor customer service, consumer scams and poor business performance is www.notgoodenough.org.
It's a forum for disgruntled consumers ripe for a good old gripe and it's getting more and more popular by the day.
Conceived after Dr Stewart was stranded at Brisbane airport when Ansett collapsed last September, the site has had 67 000 visits from less-than-satisfied customers in its first four months.
Dr Stewart was in Hobart yesterday to encourage Tasmanians to jump online and have their say.
So far she said Tasmanian complaints had centred around generic issues such as freight costs.
But one avid Tasmanian ten pin bowler also contacted the site to complain about outdated bowling facilities.
"Nothing's too wired and wacky for us" Dr Stewart said. "you've got to have an open mind".
"We're not just interested in complaints for complaints' sake we want to help business do better." The complaints which make it to the site's Top 10 list are relayed back to the companies concerned and Dr Stewart said it seemed to help problems get solved quickly.
The big surprise for Dr Stewart had been the deluge of complaints about furniture manufacturers, their standards, warranties and retail support.
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Rosanne Bersten
The Age
26 March 2002
Page 6 NEXT
It's a pretty tough call, running a website where you invite people to have a go at other people. You're kind of setting yourself up, really, claiming to be perfect. You have to be better than the rest, anyhow.
So I was a little peeved when I tried one of my favourite sites, www.kvetch.com, and it crashed my Mac. Twice.
Kvetch is a neat little space where you can read a random kvetch (it's an old Yiddish word meaning to complain or find fault. Believe me, we know how to complain!) or make one. Americans are good complainers. Not so we Aussies, apparently.
According to Fiona Stewart, the brave bod behind new Australian site Notgoodenough. org, only 6 per cent of Australians complain when they get bad service.
Her new site has forums where battlers can complain about the products and service providers they think are letting the team down.
It's not exactly a new idea: the Australian Consumers Association, for example, has had forums for consumer complaints at www.choice.com.au for years. (In the interests of disclosure, I should mention that I used to work for ACA).
If you're wondering what there is to complain about, you obviously live a charmed life.
The rest know what we're on about here: products that fall apart when you turn them on the first time; phone companies that charge you for calls you never made; customer service reps who tell you over and over again that it's your fault that you signed the contract without reading in the fine print that your first-born child was to be forfeit as the exit fee in the event your partner is a Gemini.
Computer products and new services seem to be rife with problems. It could be that they're more complicated than good old-fashioned mechanical products, but I'd bet it's partly because the manufacturers thinks they can get away with more because we're all bamboozled by technology.
Is any of this complaining getting us anywhere?
You need only look at reports from the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman (www.tio.com.au) to know you need the power of a big stick behind you to make some of these sods do anything about us humble folk and our seemingly petty concerns.
But if the customer's always right, then maybe lots of customers together have more of a chance than a lone wolf.
It's worth a chance: power in numbers and all that.
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Behind that Billboard
Fiona Stewart
Herald Sun
26 March 2002
Page 21
Have you seen the billboard? You know, the one in Hoddle Street near the MCG.
The one that asks: "If you've had an abortion. And then you've had breast cancer. Did your doctor warn you of this risk? Seek free legal advice [on this number]".
If you're like me, you might think this is a strange sign for a major intersection. And if you're like me, you may be surprised at who's really behind it.
On first glance I, along with the rest of Melbourne, needed forgiveness for thinking that the sign was a ploy by an smart lawyer chasing new business. After all, it was only last week that a TV program made a mockery of the profession after some legal eagles were caught actively promoting class actions.
Yeah, sure, a class action linking abortion to breast cancer could be lucrative. If not for the women involved, then at least for the lawyers. This is why I was curious to go further. To visit the website listed, www.abortionbreastcancer.com and discover the truth. It was with dismay, however, that I learned of its true intent.
While the phone number on the board does indeed take you to a Melbourne legal firm, the website does not; that leads you straight to one of America's leading right-to-life websites. The reader is deceived into visiting the US-based Coalition on Abortion Breast Cancer.
Claiming to be "an international women's organization whose purpose is to protect the health and save the lives of women", if you dig deeper the Pro-Life agenda becomes clear.
Not only is the Coalition's President, Karen Malec, a prominent member of US Right-To-Life groups, but Babette Francis is a member of their advisory board. And this is where it gets interesting.
Toorak-based Babette, of course, is the wife of Charles Francis QC. He's the lawyer who's just back from Tassie where he's been scare-mongering among that state's politicians. Warning that if changes to abortion law go ahead, litigation against doctors will increase.
Together, this husband and wife team have close associations with the Australian Family Association. They are also "in bed" - so to speak - with Margaret Tighe's Right-to-Life.
A marriage made in heaven? I don't think so as there is a second and more serious deception going on.
Despite important medical research to the contrary, this billboard cunningly links the experience of abortion to the incidence of breast cancer.
Yet according to Professor Jay Harris of the Harvard Medical School - a man who is surely one of the most authoritative voices in the area - there are "no definitive studies linking abortion and breast cancer".
Not surprisingly, the World Health Organisation agrees. In a press release of June 2000, WHO states "there is no consistent effect of abortion on a woman's risk of breast cancer".
For all these reasons, this billboard is prime picking for the ACCC. After all, none of us deserves to be subject to such Taliban-like moral and religious righteousness. My one hope for now is that Professor Fels agrees.
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Sun Herald
Daniel Dasey
24 March 2002
Page 37
BANKS, telephone companies and public transport providers are the institutions most likely to infuriate Australians, correspondence to a new watchdog service suggests.
A Melbourne-based website, www.notgoodenough.org encourages consumers to publicly dob in companies guilty of rude service or poor management of customer needs.
BANKS, telephone companies and public transport providers are the institutions most likely to infuriate Australians, correspondence to a new watchdog service suggests.
A Melbourne-based website, www.notgoodenough.org encourages consumers to publicly dob in companies guilty of rude service or poor management of customer needs.
Visitors to the site, which began operating at the beginning of this month, can submit detailed reports which are then posted in forums where other consumers can comment and relate their experiences.
By last week, the service was logging up to 1,000 visitors a day, with several hundred, often detailed, complaints recorded.
The site's founder, internet researcher Fiona Stewart, plans to fund the service by collating complaints and preparing reports for companies shown to be regularly irritating the public.
''I'm taking the optimistic view that major companies don't want to be losing customers, but have gaps in their customer service methods,'' Dr Stewart said.
Of more than 1,000 complaints recorded, the most common related to telephone companies, predominantly Telstra, she said.
''It varies from complaints about mobile phones to internet service providers to the owners of the phone networks.
''The issues that come up are about customer service, billing practices and new products not working.''
Banks and public transport providers are the two next most common areas of complaint.
For banks, the complaints were about account fees, not being connected to the right person and being treated rudely over the counter. For public transport it was ticket inspectors and scheduling.
Dr Stewart said bad language was not encouraged and each complaint was vetted to ensure it was legitimate and not an attempt to slander a competitor, although contributors are encouraged to not pull punches.
Gripes on the website include a contributor, CLF, who found Vodafone ''hopeless beyond belief'''; Ursula, who is ''fed up'' with Medibank Private; and Nikko, who is angry at a ''grubby policy'' at Coles Myer.
Interest in the site comes despite a recent global survey suggesting Australians are among the least likely to complaint about poor service.
The internet changes that, Dr Stewart said, by giving people the medium and the confidence that what they say can be used.
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How the Internet Gave Way to a New Girl Power
Fiona Stewart
The Age
22 March 2002
Page 15
If your mum is like mine, "Don't talk to strangers" would have been the mantra of your childhood. Back then, in those halcyon days before the Internet, risk and danger were easily identifiable.
The man lurking in the bushes. The man offering you lollies from the window of his car. These were the images of danger that successive generations of women know off by heart.
What we haven't known, yet what the e-Generation is having to learn fast, is what danger looks like online. And with the vast majority of girls far more Net literate than their Baby Boomer parents, it is the girls themselves who are working out the answers.
The concept of risk on the Internet and how girls deal with it is what a new study by the American Girl Scout Association set out to investigate.
Titled The Net Effect: Girls and New Media (www.girlscouts.org/about/PDFs/NetEffects.pdf), this research documents the impact of the Internet on girls' emotional lives and communication patterns.
With the aim of making girls' online time a more rewarding experience, the study delved deep into the intricacies of the online environment.
While no one would think for a minute that the Internet is totally safe, what the researchers were surprised to discover was the systematic danger to which young women are being exposed online.
Take the issue of sexual harassment. In this study, one in three girls said they had been sexually harassed in an Internet chat room.
The most common forms of harassment were being asked about one's bra size, being sent photos of naked male admirers, or being asked to "cyber" - shorthand for "do you want to do cybersex?" Innuendo and come-ons, it seems, are par for the Internet course.
This significant level of harassment contrasts sharply with young women's real-world contact with boys and men, where far fewer young women are subjected to harassment.
But perhaps there is an upside to all this: perhaps the sexual harassment of young women online is not altogether bad.
Assuming that personal identifiers are kept off the screen, young women have much to learn from their experiences online.
Unlike their non-digital older sisters, for whom any type of assertiveness training had to take place in the real world, for Net-savvy young women the Internet can be an excellent stamping ground.
With the anonymity of their usernames and from the safety of their parents' home, girls online can perfect any number of "bugger off" lines.
If Internet chat rooms deliver these skills to the young women who use them, then the more hard core or repulsive aspects of the Internet might fade to grey.
In days gone by, saying "no" was a skill many young women lacked. Modern notions of femininity have almost required young women to say "yes" - secure in their knowledge that nice girls are agreeable girls who don't create trouble.
Back online, however, the gloves are clearly off. While it is only to be expected that girls won't always like what they see and hear online, the fact that they are more likely to use the online environment to tell unwanted admirers where to get off is testimony to a new girl power.
And then there is young women's own approach to the Internet. In the Girl Scout study, most girls said they relied on their common sense to protect themselves online.
These girls did not need parents telling them not to divulge personal details such as phone numbers or addresses. Instead, they are working it out for themselves, creating their own rules and expectations as they go.
Like Bill Gates, girls today know that the "Internet has changed everything". And they know that many people lie online, or pretend to be someone else. As one 18-year-old Girl Scout put it, "you could be talking to a perverted 50-year-old man sitting around in his boxer shorts".
Girls today know that age-old advice no longer holds - because if you didn't want to talk to strangers, you wouldn't go to chat rooms.
With the world turned upside down, the challenge for parents is not about saying "don't". Rather it is to help their daughters deal with the less savoury when it happens - because happen it will. While parents might still know more about the streets, it is their daughters who have got the hold on the information super-highway.
Getting the best mileage possible is what the Internet should be all about.
Fiona Stewart is the founder of www.NotGoodEnough.org
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Now, vent your spleen online
Andrew Shipp
The West Australian
13 March 2002
Page 51
WHEN it comes to complaining Australian's are not that good at it. Only 5 per cent of us will speak up about bad service and out of a recent survey found only the Kiwis and the Japanese are less likely to complain.
But if you for feel like you've been subjected to substandard service or been ripped off by one of the major corporations don't scream "Not happy Jan", mutter under your breath or look for a cat, go online and give them a blast. A new Web site, www.notgoodenough.org, gives disgruntled punters the chance to vent their spleen.
The site is the brainchild of Fiona Stewart, an online researcher who was stranded in Brisbane in the first Ansett collapse and was annoyed at the attitude and performance of Qantas.
Like most of us Dr Stewart kept quiet. "I didn't take my complaint to management because I didn't think I'd get heard," she says.
"If their attitude at the airport was anything to go by then I had buckleys. But if knew about a Web site where I could easily, and in my own time, voice my complaint I sure would have."
Since being launched last week more than 3500 people have logged on to the site and about a third of those have become members and they're prepared to let others know about the shoddy service which has been dished out to them.
The banks, telephone companies, credit cards and public transport have all been targets for angry customers and the resulting online forums make for entertaining and informative reading.
"If people want to dig a bit deeper and find out what other people are experiencing you can enter the debate," Dr Stewart said. "It provides the forum for people to be knowledgeable and informed when they take their complaints to the companies."
It is also the plan of Dr Stewart to get companies to subscribe so they can find out exactly what their customers feel about them. The idea is not to use the site as a big stick, she says, but to encourage them to change their ways to better serve their clients.
"I think most companies want to change," she says. "I don't think they are in business to lose customers. Getting the (customers') voices back to them and getting them aware of where they're stuffing up and encouraging them to change is what it is all about."
So far Vodaphone, Telstra and the Treasurer have made it to the"Bottom Dwellers" list for their behaviour while American Express is the only" Corporate Winner".
And with the collapse of Ansett Qantas is going to be subject to intense scrutiny. Only time will tell which category it falls into.
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Karen Collier
Herald Sun
27 February 2002
Page 30
CUSTOMERS sick of shoddy products and service can vent their spleen on a national gripe website. Public transport companies, hospitals, schools and banks will be among the dozens of institutions to be the focus of the free complaints campaign.
Melbourne researcher Dr Fiona Stewart is urging consumers to dob in second-rate businesses, councils and government agencies to help improve customer treatment.
The move follows studies showing Australians have one of the world's lowest whinge rates.
Just 6 per cent of Aussies officially complain when they suffer poor service, according to recent research.
Most said they did not have the time or that it was too much trouble.
But Dr Stewart said firms relied on feedback to pinpoint key problems and lift their game.
Dr Stewart, an author on online research, said the Internet was the ideal platform for people to let off steam.
"It is an open environment where you don't have someone leaning over your shoulder, so you can say what you really feel," she said.
"Consumers have an entitlement not only to complain, but also to pressure for changes to company and government practices."
Dr Stewart said people's personal details would be kept confidential but complaints would be vetted to ensure they were genuine.
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Adrian Tame
Sunday Herald Sun
31 March 2002
Page 28
Australia is emerging as a nation of feisty, hard-to-please consumers, according to a fledgling website which received more than 12 000 gripes in its first month of existence.
Business consultant Fiona Stewart, 35, launched her consumer complaints website www.notgoodenough.org earlier this month from her home in South Yarra and was immediately inundated with hits from unhappy customers.
The response has been so overwhelming Dr Stewart has already collated her first hit parade - a top 10 of companies, products and institutions people love to hate. Dr Stewart told the Sunday Herald Sun this week: "I decided to start the the website after a particularly bad experience with Qantas in Brisbane on the day Ansett collapsed.
"We have had hits from all over Australia, from all age groups including a man in his 80s, and from all walks of life."
And the aspect of modern life most of them seem unhappy about is the mobile phone system: "this is across the board; Telstra, Vodaphone, Optus, Virgin Mobile, the lot.
"People are complaining about dodgy deals, crappy customer service and misleading advertising."
Because of the risks of being sued by companies named on her site, Dr Stewart spent $7000 on legal advice: "We have to be careful we are not being exploited for the purpose of commercial rivalry.
"I'm not doing this to make life hard for companies.
They can use the site as an early warning system to discover problems and do something about them before they get out of hand."
Dr Stewart said she hopes to derive income from the site by selling information in report form to companies and government bodies.
Details of any such contracts would be included on the site.
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Joker trips the Queen of Gripes
Lawrence Money
The Sunday Age
2 June 2002
Page 20
Fiona Stewart, the new Internet gripe queen, was spitting microchips yesterday after her notgoodenough website was bowled middle stump by a hoaxer.
"This is a serious set-up" she said on Friday morning after Spy broke the unpalatable news that an item on the site for the past week, describing a consumer's fight with a boozy manager in a city adult bookshop, was a load of cobblers.
The item had been listed in the Top 10 Complaints of the week but was deleted immediately. An apology was posted by lunchtime as Dr Stewart moved to cover her legal derriere.
Said Dr Stewart: "This sort of hoax destroys the goodwill of the site. I thought I could spot a hoaxer. Obviously Internet users are more canny than we all thought. This is clearly something websites have to deal with.
"our strategy to date has been to post the complaints, then invite companies to respond the next day. We will now tighten procedures. We will learn from this."
The hoaxer an emailer by the name of Metro Man, claimed that he and his wife had bought sex toys at Sexpo, then tried to return them to an adult bookshop in the city. He claimed the manager appeared drunk and threw the goods back at him, hitting his wife on the head.
Metro Man phone Spy last week to confess that the entire story was false and had been planted to test the checks made by notgoodenough. "it was pretty obviously phony" said Metro Man. "To start with there is no bookshop of that name in the street".
Dr Stewart and her team, who have been doing a steady trade in consumer gripes since launching 2 months ago conceded she'd been caught out. "No excuses. We got it wrong. We are hiring more staff and reorganising the way we operate".
The owner of the bookshop named in the phony complaint told Spy: "I'm a bit annoyed but I'm just letting sleeping dogs lie. It's the whole Internet experience".
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Whingers on the Warpath
Nikki Voss
The Sunday Mail
2 June 2002
Page 47
Whingers are on the warpath and raging against bad service, shonky businesses and false advertising in Queensland through a national consumer website.
Website creator Fiona Stewart hopes the Not Good Enough site, designed to shame businesses into responding to customer gripes, will also stem the rise in service rage.
Since the website's launch three months ago, Queenslanders have emerged as the country's biggest complainers per head of population, responsible for one in five complaints.
"I don't know what it is about Queenslanders but once they cottoned on to the site the complaints have been flowing in thick and fast,” Dr Stewart said.
The Melbourne-based former academic is even considering relocating operations to the Sunshine State.
Dr Stewart was inspired to launch the service, on www.NotGoodEnough.org after being marooned at Brisbane Airport by the Ansett collapse.
She decided to fight back on behalf of “powerless, angry customers”. The website has had 42 000 hits from unhappy customers all over the country. Not surprisingly, Telstra, the banks and Internet companies copped the heaviest criticism. Queensland banks Suncorp Metway and the Bank of Queensland have been regular targets as have MBF, Brisbane City Council, Queensland Rail, internet service providers and local restaurants and take-aways.
“Screaming at some sales assistant generally gets people nowhere. It’s embarrassing and loud” Dr Stewart said.
“This way is far more effective. The business is exposed for its treatment or actions and they are given a chance to explain. An angry person can also feel like they have vented after posting a complaint on the website”.
Dr Stewart checks out the customers’ story before going head-to-head with the accused to fix the problem. One Brisbane school student complained that their Principal had a climate-controlled office while the students suffered through sweltering heat – Dr Stewart secured air conditioning for them.
Other complaints from cranky Queenslanders include:
A Bruce Highway service station diner that advertised a $7.95 full breakfast on highway billboards depicting a plate of huge sausages when they were really only 5cm long.
Queensland Transport for refusing concessions to Newstart allowance recipients when almost all of Australia gives a discount.
A Southport travel company that decided not to help a woman’s husband fly back to work overseas after taking his deposit but refusing to find alternative arrangements when he was bumped from a flight.
Dr Stewart said some companies replied to accusations directly on the website but many more ignored the whinge.
“At the very least, the customer feels better for sharing their problem and the Queensland businesses that don’t do the right thing get the publicity they deserve” she said.
Companies to get a pat on the back included Algester Property Consultants and the Balmoral Hotel for their staff and the Myer Centre Sizzler restaurant for its fresh food.
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Website black eye for Coast
Paul Weston
Gold Coast Bulletin
18-19 May 2002
Page 16
The Gold Coast is fast getting the reputation as the Fawlty Towers capital of Australia.
The top four of a Top 10 Gripes list provided by a new consumer watchdog website features Coast businesses.
Not Good Enough founder, Fiona Stewart, says more than 15% of 41 000 visits to the website are from Queenslanders, so it's not surprising Gold Coast businesses get complaints.
The former academic, who decided on building the website after being stranded at Brisbane airport during the Ansett collapse in September, says Coast businesses and other companies listed on the website are yet to take up the offer to defend themselves.
Fiona told CC: "We have a strong following in Queensland. I think the Gold Coast has attracted particular attention because people want a hassle-free holiday.
"When the slightest thing goes wrong (on holiday), you are more likely to complain.
"I think there's a challenge for the Gold Coast City Council to keep an eye on who is not performing.
"The Gold Coast doesn't want its tourist reputation to be ruined."
Readers can access Not Good Enough's website on www.NotGoodEnough.org for more details, but the Top 10 includes:
* A Surfers Paradise apartment tower where the travel books and pamphlets provided show "a gorgeous room that doesn't exist."
* A Coast travel agency which refused during Christmas to book a hubby "bumped off his flight" on to another flight and then failed to reply to a complaint by his wife."
* Another Surfers Paradise apartment tower, where managers failed to clean up broken glass from a hallway after police arrested a drunk for smashing a glass against a door.
* A well-known Tweed Heads restaurant, where a couple at 8.45pm, 15 minutes before closing time were told by a manager not to order because "it was too late and they were having trouble with the chief cook."
Other gripes target a Queensland bank where it takes at least 20 minutes for a simple deposit transaction and an airline which has increased its prices to the Gold Coast by $189 each way.
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