DOOYOO CHANGES THINGS FOR THE BETTER!!! (dooyoo.co.uk in general)

Member Name: GNU BOY

Product:	dooyoo.co.uk in general
Date:	14/02/01 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Positively enriches your understanding of a good or service before you experience it. Great fun. Earn money. Change things for the better.

Disadvantages: Not really any!

How about this for a DooYoo story? I recently went travelling in Canada, arriving back in England in mid January. I had used a Dorling Kindersley Travel Guide while out there, and despite finding it useful generally, I noticed a few flaws in the content. I was introduced to DooYoo by a friend about ten days ago, and decided one of my opinions would be to write a review of the travel guide. So I did. I included all the positive factors, but made sure to include all the problems the guide series as a whole encountered (read the opinion if you are interested). To my surprise, I checked my e-mail yesterday to find a message from a man working for Dorling Kindersley!

He had read my opinion, and had taken it seriously enough to respond to me in defence of his guide book series. He informed me that the issues I had raised in my opinion had not been deemed serious enough to raise in the guide, but in hindsight, perhaps travellers should be aware of the matters. He also admitted that the amount of space afforded by the guide to a certain science centre may not have been appropriate.

This is all very well, I hear you say, but what does it change? Well, I was pleased to read that he will pass my comments onto the editor of the guide books, so that the matters may be resolved in time for the next edition of the book (published later this year). Easy as that! Now, I don’t know if this was merely a publicity stunt to give me the impression that the company values its customers’ opinions; or that the man genuinely hopes to see my points included in future guide books, but I was suddenly aware of a number of things:

Firstly, DooYoo is not read only by members. I am relatively new to the service, so may be unaware of its following (yes, I know about the awards!). However, it is clear that people working in each of the products and services we review also use the service (perhaps as non-members, my account suggests). This is surely to get
some feedback from the consumer in a way that is easier and more organised than asking random people on the street. A ready made consumer research project, perhaps? We can often not tell who has read our opinions (unless they rate or comment on them), so should be aware that the people who are involved with the production of these goods and services also read them from time to time.

Secondly, what we write is very important. DooYoo is not just a laugh (well, not entirely anyway!). What we include in our opinions should be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I don’t mean to sound preachy, but DooYoo is there for the consumer to know what to go for and what to avoid. It’s no good going to a club some joker has reviewed positively, and then realising he’s obviously never been there (‘You mean there are NO toilets?’). Nor is it particularly beneficial if you avoid reading a book that has been slated heavily, then after a year of avoiding it, pick it up and find it is an excellent read. Yes, DooYoo is about opinions, there is no right or wrong answer. However, if we are all objective in our opinion writing, there should become a nice ‘average’ feeling towards a product or service, so much so that we can realise pretty much what the score is, as it were. If everybody is reviewing a CD strongly, we can gather that it is probably worth buying; likewise a movie that gets nothing but ‘one star’ ratings is probably one to avoid. As DooYoo users we are there for each other’s benefit. Remember that.

Thirdly and finally, we as DooYoo users have the power to change. The people who provide goods and services read these opinions, genuinely interested in improving them. If you don’t like something, write a DooYoo opinion, being as objective as possible, and INCLUDE how things could be improved. This is the only way you can hope to change things for the better. Likewise, if somethin
g is ‘just right’, in other words things should stay exactly as they are, write a DooYoo opinion. If you don’t make the effort, you could end up finding things change without you wanting them to. I was slightly disappointed with a travel guide, and now it seems the whole book could be adjusted to my, the consumer’s, liking. I was quite lucky in a way, because nobody else had written an opinion on this particular series; so maybe the company took my feelings to be the truth! However, you should remember that everybody’s opinion matters on this site. It is a great way to have your say about something, without the bigger, louder, better-looking person grabbing the attention.

I hope I have given you something (or several things!) to think about. If you have had a similar experience to mine (ie. the company producing goods or services you wrote an opinion on contacted you), please e-mail me, as I’d be really interested to know the impact DooYoo is having. If you’d like to read my opinion on the Dorling Kindersley series of guide books, it is listed under Eyewitness Travel Guides. Please feel free to read some more of my opinions and write comments, and I’ll have a read of some of yours, too. I have realised in a few days what a great service we have in DooYoo. Long may it continue. DooYoo is truly one for the people.

Summary: