Collaborative discussion groups revolving around a topic, a product or a service have multiplied on the internet. Such collaborative environments (sometimes called "ideagoras") are frequently hosted by organizations themselves in order to gather customers' point of view or ideas. The first one to appear was Dell Ideastorm, in which customers were prompted to react on Dell products. Now a lot of other companies begin to let their customers speak publicly.For instance, Starbucks, the famous coffee chain, asks his customers to leave remarks or suggestions on the website My Starbucks Idea, inside the sections Product, Experience and Involvement. The internauts can vote on submitted ideas or comment them, which prompts them to get involved and creates a community. Letting the customers speak up strengthens their attachment to the brand, but also enables the company to obtain up-to-date information about their expectations, as if it was a real-time mini market study. Starbucks commits itself to realize the most popular suggestions, and gives updates on their progress.
In France we can mention several popular initiatives. On Vous-et-la-ratp.net, RATP (metro and suburban train network) is collecting frequent users' recommendations and critics of the transportation services provided. The train company SNCF began the same approach, to show its will to listen to the customer and develop new ideas, an the company even answers officially some questions.
More recently, energy related companies started open collaborative discussion groups. For instance AREVA initiated an heterogeneous website entitled Parlons-en (« Let's talk about it ») welcoming discussions, interviews and videos related to nuclear energy debates. It is very surprising as the topics related to AREVA are very sensitive in the public opinion, and nevertheless the company lets the people express themselves without any censorship (moderation is made a posteriori).
EDF has also begun a collaborative approach with the website named Partageons nos Savoirs, on which French local administrations (including mayors' offices and members of regional councils) are invited to share their knowledge or their concerns regarding various subjects including electricity, water supply, education…
These collaborative platforms are not always hosted by a specific company: Get Satisfaction and User Voice are independent platforms gathering opinions and ideas of consumers on all products, and on which the related companies can base themselves to make their offering evolve.
@Isabelle VAUTIER
