Dooyoo Members Feedback Initiative: The End of An Ear 'Ole. (Public Notice)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Public Notice
Date:	27/07/04 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See op

Disadvantages: See op

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TheDuke says:

This isn't really a challenge, although more of helping hand for Dooyoo to understand the members and hopefully, in return, a chance of a better understanding of Dooyoo for us. This is how it works:

You write an open letter to Dooyoo giving them your feedback on the site as well as any suggestions you may have for taking the site forward addressing any concerns you might have etc. The important thing is the feedback, so include as much or as little as you feel is appropriate to yourself. Don't worry if someone has mentioned a point that you want to raise ? it's also important that Dooyoo see how many people have praise, concerns or suggestions about aspects of the site.

Then you do three things: first, you post your "opinion" on Dooyoo (the category is listed below) and include some blurb in it which I'll post below. Second (and this is the important bit) you email your opinion off to Dooyoo directly via the dooyooteam@dooyoo.co.uk address so that they can read it. Third, if (and the 'if' must be stressed here) or when you get a reply, then you post their reply onto the end of your letter thus giving a complete picture of your suggestions and concerns and how Dooyoo views them. Obviously, the blurb bit is important as people don't like you quoting their emails, so if a certain piece of text is included in the opinion, then they'll know what people's intentions are.

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Dear Dooyoo,

I?ve been writing on Dooyoo for over 2 and a half years now and have seen the slow demise of what was once a great online institution. I can remember waking up and logging on at 7.15am to see a thriving new opinions board with folks attracting 20 odd reads in between posting early doors and clambering back from a shower before going to work. One
of my fondest memories is of swapping the occasional ?Good morning? with other writers in their thread as you were one of the first to read their latest piece.

For those who did become established on the site, a read count of 50 and upwards wasn?t uncommon and, of course, with so many more opinions being posted, more crowns were available to more writers. Forgive the name dropping but certain writers did more too establish this site as a hotbed of debate than most and included the controversial SidneyGee, Scotgirl, King_Herrod and many others who you came to know and respect when logging on to the site. Of course, others have come along to take their place but it?s simply not the same and the impact is significantly less than these fine writers achieved without resorting to simply undermining the site with silly conspiracy theories and the like.

From past experience, I have submitted my views directly to Dooyoo only too be ignored along with others who have made similar efforts. In a consumer driven industry, this is astoundingly bad form. I work in one of the most unpopular industries there is and am constantly at the beck and call of customers who expect more and more all the time and find myself more and more immersed in ever increasing government legislation supposedly designed to protect the consumer. Complaints are becoming regulated to the point where if a customer sneezes on my premises, I have to fill in a 1000 word report on the reasons why and the possible implications for an ex-gratia payment. So for you to carry on dismissing the views of so many of your members with apparent contempt is lamentable and does not bode well for the future (but then you know that).

The Aurora upgrade was a watershed for Dooyoo. What was heralded as the vision of the future quickly turned into an online turkey with writer after writer slating the changes. Then
again, the site became completely unworkable so it?s hardly a surprise. Just about the only thing that kept the site afloat was the lovely Katie?s ongoing dialogue with the members even to the point where she would post on both Dooyoo, Tooyoo and other forums in an attempt to placate and inform the writers. On a personal note, I always found Katie a delight to communicate with and as forthcoming as she could be about Dooyoo and it?s future. As I mentioned only recently, her only comment as to the long-term nature of Dooyoo was that it appeared on the business plan for 2004 and that was all she would say. When she moved on early this year, I decided to head for the exit myself as I assumed the game was up for dear old Dooyoo.

There are still aspects of Dooyoo that attract writers. Whilst a certain number question the allocation of crowns, this system beats the ethereal and inherently unfair awarding of diamonds on your rival site ? Ciao ? hands down. More writers are rewarded and it IS possible to see the standard required to win an award. Ironically, the lack of community seems something of a haven for many who have found the going on Ciao intolerable although I can?t say that I?ve encountered this myself but then I?m not really that prominent in the activities outside of opinionating, mainly due to time constraints. I?ve always felt that the standards of opinions on Dooyoo was higher than that of Ciao but I?m not so sure now with the small volumes of new work posted daily when comparing the 2 sites. The threads make for an interactive exchange for those that leave comments about your opinion and it can be an enjoyable experience keeping all the posts and replies in one place rather than having to go to a private gb to make a point a la Ciao.

So if you were to listen what can we do?

 Obvious bu
t simple, fix the capital letters problem issue that has blighted many a member?s piece of work. Charlie_Consumer has arrived at a simple fix but, again, this reflects poorly that a member has to do this when a professional, money-making enterprise can?t come up with something several months down the track.

 Introduce long overdue guestbooks or officially recognise the efforts of IloveJackDaniels and his guestbooks at Tooyoo. There is a clear link between opinions and community and this relationship is exploited at Ciao making it a significant competitive advantage over the perceived ?library? nature of Dooyoo.

 Revamp the search facility so that consumers can actually find what they are looking for!

 Speed the connection up and drop some of the adverts that slow the reader down to a crawl when trying to use the site. I wonder just how many of those pop-ups actually get clicked as opposed to a loud "tut" and a whack on the delete button.

 Find a way of adding suggestions more quickly. Maybe this might involve volunteers from the site but anything is better than the apparent cyber-paper mountain that probably surrounds Nathalie every day!

 Take on board all of the other constructive suggestions from other writers who have taken the time to consider their thoughts on this subject. Time is money and not just for Dooyoo but for many of the folks that use their personal time to participate in your endeavour and possibly purchase from your links.

Thank you for reading, Paul (Marandina)

The above was sent as part of the Dooyoo Members' Feedback Initiative. The content is intended to provide constructive criticism for taking the site forward from the member's point of view, and has been posted to the site as an opinion. Your reply, if any
is received, will be posted into the end of the opinion giving members a better idea of the Dooyoo and the site.

Reply received:
From: "dooyooteam.co.uk" View Contact Details
To: dooyooteam@dooyoo.co.uk
Subject: The dooyoo Feedback Challenge
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 13:42:19 +0100


Dear dooyoo users,

Thank you very much for your feedback.

We have read your opinions on The Duke's dooyoo feedback challenge with great interest.

One of our main focus is the users and the community. They are very
important to us.

I hope you will understand if we reply to all your comments in one
email. We have tried to collect them all together and will try to reply to them here.

We are aware that the site is slow from time to time. We are currently
working on the technical side of the platform to make its performance
better, faster and more stable. The search engine will also be much
improved with the help of these implementations.

We hope to implement email replies to product suggestions shortly. The
product suggestions will also be uploaded to the site much more
regularly.

We think it is also a good idea to put the work-arounds up on the
community page. Could one of you (maybe Jill as you suggested the idea) send all the links to us in one email so we can have all the important links together?

Thank you very much for your suggestions,

Your dooyoo team,
Nathalie

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