I recently found out that my town has started a good citizens initiative that includes many businesses in town.
- The local businesses are essentially rating citizens based on their ease of customer service.
Yeah, I’m talking about reverse review system where local business owners are deciding how reputable consumers are. Isn’t that wild? I guess there’s been a number of instances of local businesses performing services that they were never paid for. As a protective measure, they started banding together and reporting low quality customers to save the heartaches of unpaid bills. I thought this was an interesting idea, but I am a bit paranoid. Recently, I was trying to schedule a heating cooling and ventilation service appointment with my regular HVAC company, and they told me that I was highly ranked in their customer system. I was really excited about this news, until they followed up by telling me that they couldn’t service my exact model of heating and cooling system. They recommended a different ventilation service to me. When I called them, we had no business relationship established. They were very cautious to make the equipment service appointment with me, because they weren’t sure that I would be a promising client. I tried to reference my original ventilation companies high score, but they weren’t interested in the competition’s rating. Now, I’m having to win over this HVAC company just to get my ventilation equipment service. I’ve been dropping off handmade brownies and preserves for weeks, and mentioning my indoor air quality with every visit. I can’t wait to earn another five star review so they finally trust me.