Get Satisfaction Beta Release

I just got this account and i don't know how, i didn't sign up for it but i got it. and i have like 70 followers i don't know them or where they came from. can somebody tell me what's going on here. like who are these people fallowing me? and how did i get this account? and what is this account all about? I might want to keep it

Hi Get Satisfaction team,

some more things that came to my mind, while I was surfing here the last minutes:

1.) It should be easier to reach your company "space" (?), you should have the right (and the reason) to place your space on your own site prominently, as you are the provider of this service! E.g. it could be possible to reach your "space" through the click on your logo, which' function doubles with the already existing (and sufficient) "Home" link! A second possibility could be to link it on the right side at the "top" of all the "not-so-important" stuff on the home page. ("not-so-important" concerns the text and is just my opinion. ;-))

2.) Now the title idea: I surf the web and I read feeds and especially the latter constantly reminds me of some companies, I didn't check if they're here. But the problem is, once I searched a company and found it and want to search another one, I have to make at least one click to reach a search page. So maybe a "Do you like to search for another company / product" AJAX-pop up would be fitting, after one has added a product / company to his dashboard.

3.) I'm kind of wondering about certain companies. I have criticised the widespread of half-finished, not fitting or bogus products but in our discussion, we all thought it is correct, that companies would "clean the mess", if they're in control. But as I'm looking into several companies, it doesn't seem to be like that. I just don't know, why there are company "spaces" here, where there are "7 employees are listening and participating", but two of the three products aren't of the company, other is a plugin for another software and one is a completely different product! It seems some user did that, as some people are too stupid to even get this veeery simple and straightforward interface (praise! :)) that you offer them here! -.-
Maybe I'm a little bit too perfectionist, I don't know?! (because of that, I packed all this into a discussion. ;-)) But if it were up to me, I'd even make the addition of a picture to a new company and product a must. ;)

4.) Additional "Sort-by" options: If not there is at least a "personal usage" "sort-by:" function (I know you are looking into that :)), it maybe (also) should be possible to "prioritize" companies and products. Or maybe just drag & drop them around. Although I think, if there will be a "Sort by: personal usage frequency" this almost my above ideas.
But maybe the above ideas are more appealing to you than my last one concerning this. ;-)

5.) I'd still find it very useful (although GS is easy to use and understand) to make a manual and/or FAQ (maybe as a wiki) explaining all the way this works here with Get Satisfaction.
Because I'm constantly asking myself: "Am I missing something? Am I maybe just too dump to find / recognize / get it?" ;) As at the moment, where I'm asking myself, if I'm still missing the manual / FAQ, which you of course do have ever since. ;-)

Hi there,

when first using GetSatisfaction, I thought the tags that are recommended to me, will get more. But they don't. Is this because there is not enough "tagging folk" or are the other tags missing the certain "critical mass"? Maybe you should lower it then...

The point is, I used the tag "usability" several times, but it didn't show up. Also I think, the mood tags are a little limited. The best solution would be from my point of view (if this is technically possible) to immediately recommend the tags, that one (the user) has used before.

UPDATE

Start a topic
Have a question, idea, problem or just want to talk? Start typing in the box at the top of the page and see if any similar topics are already in the system.


Click on one of the topics or see all search results:


From the search results page you can click on the topic if you find it or start a new one:


OR, just lick the "Start a Topic" button at the top of the page.


Pick a category: Question, Idea, Problem or Discussion. Enter your topic and a brief but descriptive title:



Add a relevant product or service:



Tag it and tell everyone how you're feeling about it:



Finally, be sure you've done all you can to make your topic as noticeable and findable as possible. Then submit it!:


Browse topics
On the Company home page you can see a paginated list of all topics in that community. You can view them by the default view "Recenty Active", by "Latest Topics" or by "Unanswered". You can also filter the list of topics by type of topic by clicking on the list above the tabs: Questions, Ideas, Problems, Talk or by Products or Tags which are displayed toward the top of the page.

Tags
Toward the top of a Company Home page is a grouping of Popular Tags. Clicking on any of these tags will give you a list of all topics with that tag. Each topic has a list of tags associated with it when tags have been assigned. You can add tags to any topic.


Products & Services
There is a list of Popular Products & Services on the Company home page as well. Clicking on any of these will give you a list of all topics associated with that product or service.


Clicking the "+" will add a product to your dashboard. Clicking the "-" will remove it from your dashboard.


You can also click on the "They make x products" link to see a page with all products associated with company. From this page you can view all the products associated with or related to the company, you can add new products, you can add products to your dashboard and you can click through to any specific product page where you'll see all associated topics and have the option of editing the product details.


People's Pick
"People's Pick" is no longer being used. We now have a system that is more explicit in its meaning. Questions have "answers". Problems have "solutions". Ideas have "good points". When enough people mark someone's reply this way, it will be displayed at the top of the page. If you simply liked what someone had to say, but it doesn't specifically solve a problem or answer a question, you can leave a quick comment for them.

Official Responses and Status
Company representatives are able to mark the status on topics and mark their answers as the Best Answer or Solution from the company. It too, sticks to the top of the topic page and can be viewed inline in the context of the conversation. See this topic for further explanation.

Your Dashboard
Every registered user has a dashboard which you can access by clicking "You" in the top bar. Here you can edit your public profile, view a list of all topics you've participated in across all of Get Satisfaction, keep track of your stats in the system, manage products and companies you wish to follow, and edit your account settings*. You can also subscribe to a RSS feed of your acitvity from your dashboard.

*Account Settings
Account settings are part of your dashboard. This is where you can edit your personal information such as nickname, real name, email address, avatar, tagline, location, password, etc. This is also where you would go to close your account, edit your title if you're officially involved with any companies and set your notification preferences.

Profile
Clicking on another user's name will take you to their profile page. Here you'll see their public profile information, their site usage stats, all topics they've participated in across all of getsatisfaction.com and a list of the companies, products and services they use.

Add a company
If you don't find the company you want to discuss on the Companies page or from the company search at the top of every page, you can add it here. If you're officially affiliated with the company you can claim it!

That's about it. Pretty simple all in all. So dive in and start participating in the conversation!

As Lane saw this morning http://twitter.com/monstro/statuses/8... most people who use Typepad, Movable Type, or VOX don't know they are "products" of the company "Six Apart" rather they think each product is a "company".

Searching for the company "Typepad", "Movable Type", or "Vox" doesn't provide results

What is the best practice for capturing these requests for help?

Can we map companies to products of a company?

Or should we create separate companies for each product?

Howdy, folks!

I thought I'd share the cognitive dissonance I find I'm experiencing pretty consistently when it comes to replying...

* First, I'm never sure whether I should be replying to a topic, replying to a reply, commenting on a reply, commenting on a comment. I find the bifurcation truly mind-boggling, I'm afraid.

* Because of the outdentation (it's a word — it is now, at least ;-) of the "Add a comment", I'm never sure (when I finally do decide on whether to reply or comment), what I'm commenting on: the reply or another comment.

* Because the "Add a comment" link appears above the comment-thread, I keep having to look for it when reading a string of comments and not finding it at the bottom.

* The overall ordering and indentation really chops up the conversation such that I have to do a lot more mental assemblage to discern who is replying to or commenting on whose reply or comment.

* I often start with a comment and realize I am going to need a little more room (and that this really should be a reply — perhaps??) and then have to copy and paste my comment thus far into a reply textarea and go from there. When the opposite occurs and I end up just saying "Cool!", I never bother downgrading this reply to comment status (even though I should??).

I can't help but feeling that this would best be cleared up by:

* Threading the topic (bonus points for show/hide thread/responses link).

* Adding a "Reply [to this reply]" ([] bits optional) directly (not in- or out-dented) under each reply.

* Adding an "Add to this topic" for those times when you have something to add that's not a reply to any one reply in particular.

* Doing away with comments altogether. If there's a need for responding directly to a reply, you should be able to reply to it in a threaded manner. If the aim is to allow for quick responses to posts, rather than split things based on length of response (and size of textarea), why not icons like: thumbs up/down, smiley/frowney, star, etc...?

I appreciate all you're making available to us — and am more than thrilled that I don't have to build it myself in addition to my products — but I think before much more is added, there needs to be some taking away. (And of course I'm not talking about a redesign effort: some subtle folding and merging would do the trick.)

Thanks again for always listening to and accommodating the sheer volume of us you do.

—Rael

Problem: 6 topics per page
Solution: More cowb^H^H^H^topics!

We didn't listen well enough in the past on this issue, Jeff Mancuso from MagnetK brought it up again today. For such a simple solution, this should have been fixed long ago.

Thanks for the heads up Jeff!

A quick criticism I'd like to levy against your otherwise great service.

It's extremely click-heavy, and sort of a huge pain to navigate.

1. You need to click into every post - then you need to manually scroll all the way to the bottom.

2. Pagination - I need to click into a new page to get the next 6 posts? I don't see a great reason for making it so few. 15-20 seems like it wouldn't come at much cost.

3. Use of back button. Satisfaction is one of the few modern web-apps that relies so heavily on the "back" button to get around. If I'm on page 5 [again, grr] of recent posts - have clicked in to some topic, then manually scrolled to the bottom, the only way I can get back to where I was before is by hitting the back button. There isn't a next or previous topic [requested elsewhere] to help me keep moving along

I know you guys are really trying hard to approach customer service from the perspective of what is best for the customers, and I totally respect that. But most of the time on the site is going to be spent by those answering requests, not those occasionally needing help. For us, things really aren't optimal right now.

Wow.. within 2h or something my profile is in the top 5 of Google.

http://www.google.be/search?hl=en&cli...

But I was thinking; is there any way you can implement the option to put a no-index meta on your profile? (as an option in the settings)

For those who may not be aware this is possible or get that it's possible but haven't figured out how to do it, read on...

Disclaimer: We are working on refining this process. We are aware that it is currently awkward and overly complicated and not at all intuitive.

That said, this is how to currently do it:

Let's say you want to associate Company A's product (we'll call it Foo) with Company B.

1. Go to Company A's Product & Services page (you'll find the tab on their Get Satisfaction home page)

2. Click on the product or service you want to associate ("Foo") which opens up that product page

3. Click the "Edit this product" link over on the right

4. That launches a modul window that allows you to edit the details of the product or service. Under "Related Companies" click the "Add another relationship" button

5. Start typing the company name "Company B" and you will be given a list of results. Select the correct result and then select a relationship type. Then click the Save Product button.

6. Now you should see "Foo" over on Company B's Products & Services page under the "Related To" tab. AND it will show up as a product or service option when creating a new topic fo Company B.

(screenshots coming...)

The Products & Services page of the Admin section is where an admin can add a primary product or service to their Satisfaction site. This is best applied to companies who have one product or service or a primary product or service that they'd want most topics assoicated with. Once set, this product or service will be automatically attached to all topic posts unless removed on a per topic basis.

To set a primary product or service that has already been added to your Satisfaction site simply select it from the drop down list provided.

To set a primary product or service that has not been added to your Satisfaction site, click the "Add a new product or service" link. Fill out the form that pops open:
Product name; Upload an image; Select "Product" or "Service"; Add a description; Add a link to your external product or service page by clicking the "Add a new link" button; click "Create Product" or "Create Service".

Now find that product or service in the drop down list and select it.




If your company has several products or services it may not make sense for you to set a primary one. In this case, you can add all your products and services by clicking on the "Add a new product or service" button in the left column of the main page of your Satisfaction site. A window will pop open where you can add the name, upload an image and add a description and an external link.

I'm curious to hear from anyone who has imported existing forum content into Get Satisfaction (or who is considering it).

We've got a forum that needs some serious updating, and Satisfaction definitely blows any other forum-ish software out of the water in terms of building a strong community around your company or organization. But since Satisfaction is so much more than "just another forum," there doesn't seem to be a ideal upgrade path from the old and busted forum to the new Satisfaction hotness.

Problems:
- The old forum has a wealth of valuable information that you absolutely can't afford to lose.
- Importing the old content will probably mean that you have to pick some less than ideal defaults. (E.g., every topic becomes a "discussion" regardless of the content, there are no "feelings," etc.)
- What do you do about all the existing user accounts on your old forum? Do they have to start over and create a new Get Satisfaction account?

A couple paths to take:
- Just import what you can using some defaults, and take advantage of the awesome new Satisfaction features from this point on.
- Import nothing and keep your old forum online, but disallow new posts, and have a big notice somewhere that says "We now live over at Get Satisfaction! Click here for the new hotness blah blah..."

Of course, in either of those cases, your user base will have to create new accounts here, if they don't have one already.

So, that's my struggle at the moment... Has anyone else worked through these issues? What did you do? I'd love to hear suggestions, solutions, commentary, etc.

Thanks!

-John

We want you to be able to keep track of the most helpful people you encounter on Get Satisfaction, and now you can.

Next time you visit your dashboard, you should see a message like this:


Tell us what you think of our import process, which other services are important to you, or other such things.

Your site allows users like myself to ADD A COMPANY. Anyone Can Do It? is your motto on that service. Being a techno-geek and a natural born promoter, I want to include here my favorite sites especially those that really will make the WEB 2.0 cut with a great product and service.

So I submitted respectfully and with good product coverage, a favorite site and am thinking that it is attributed to my user profile now. Is that correct?

I am contacting the site with the link to it's representation. What is going to occur when the site wants to take ownership of this product profile? What if they refuse to be represented? What have I done and is there any sense to it, hahah?

Looking forward to this response, big time.

wesley
aka
djchoppercat

I have some business type questions about Satisfaction, who's the best person to talk to?

Ryan McCue posted a great step-by-step "cheat sheet" for installing Get Satisfaction's Help Center on your site. Check it out!

If anyone has posted tips & tricks for implementing and/or customzing/styling Help Center on their blogs, share your links as replies to this topic or -- better yet -- post your tips here on Get Satisfaction.

How do you safely communicate private information between users with Get Satisfaction? Sometimes, for example, we need to log in to a user's wiki, and therefore we need to exchange email addresses or passwords. Lacking the "private messaging" feature used by traditional forums (or the ability to display a registered user's email address only to other registered users), we are forced to publish details in threads where anyone can see them. I know of at least one instance where PBwiki staff had to contact GS staff and have them remove private information from a post by a hapless user, who was not given any other option to communicate that information. I just created a throwaway email address for a post yesterday, and I have already gotten my first piece of spam at that email (which didn't exist before, so obviously spiders are crawling your site looking for this kind of information).

There are also times when I would have preferred to inform someone of a mistake privately, and let them sort it out and save face, rather than post openly about it.

How does Get Satisfaction recommend that we handle this problem? Are there any plans for facilitating private communications between users?

The Put Satisfaction on Your Site page of the Admin section is where admins can find our nifty widgets. Currently, we have two widgets:

1. Topic Search Widget: Allows your users to search and get results for Satisfaction topics on your own website. They'll also be able to submit new topics! Once they click on a listed topic suggestion or hit the "Add details and submit" button they'll be taken to the corresponding page in your Satisfaction site.

2. Live Topic Widget: Put a list of Get Satisfaction topics from your Satisfaction site on your own website. Choose what kind of topics, how many, and more. It's like a dynamic FAQ. Once a user clicks on one of the topics they'll be taken to that topic page on your Satisfaction site.

To add either of these widgets click the "Get it!" button. Then you'll be able to customize the perameters for the type of results you want displayed and see a handy in-line preview by clicking the "Preview" button. Once you've set the options the way you want them, copy out the Markup code and CSS code by clicking the corresponding "copy" buttons and pasting in the appropriate places in your site. You can customize the visual look of the widget to match your site by changing the CSS or changing the markup to call your own CSS code.

We also have a couple of badges you can use as links from your web site to your Satisfaction site.

If you've got Admin status for your company on Get Satisfaction you can customize your Overheard feature. Click on the "Admin" link in the top bar and scroll to the bottom of the "Company Details" page where you'll see this:



Add the keywords you want to track and exclude the ones you don't want. For instance, if you're Apple you can track "ipod, macbook, iphone" etc. and exclude "tree, pie, tart" etc. [Update: Be sure to test your settings first to make sure you're happy with the results. This allows you to fine tune your stream before turning it on.]

Once you've got your Overheard feature set up the way you want it, go check out what's being said about your company and/or products and services on the Overheard page. You'll find the tab for that on your Get Satisfaction company home page. Click the "Reply through Get Satisfaction" button to turn any Tweet into a topic. This will also send a Tweet back to the original poster so they can come see your response on Get Satisfaction.



All in all, pretty simple. Now have fun!

Companies on the Get Satisfaction support network can track and respond directly to posts in the public Twitter stream with our new feature, Overheard.

With Overheard, companies can support customer conversations across the Web. Overheard lists out recent Twitter posts ("tweets") related to a company and allows any user – employee or customer – to convert a selected tweet into a rich, searchable Get Satisfaction topic. When someone replies to a tweet via Overheard, Get Satisfaction sends a public reply to that person to let them know a discussion was started in response to their issue.

Just click the "Overheard" tab from any Company page in Get Satisfaction to see the Tweets streaming in about that company. Click on the "Reply though Get Satisfaction" button to turn that tweet into a topic and respond to it.

Company admins can manage their "Overheard" feature from the Company Details page of their Admin section. Here, you can select key words to track, select words to exclude and test your settings.

So try it out and let us know what you think!