Posts filed under 'stories'

I now know . . .

Things I’ve learned from recent stories . . .

Add comment January 10th, 2007

Products vs. experiences

People ask me all the time how Sutori is different from customer review sites like Epinions or some of the more interesting newcomers like Stylehive or ThisNext.

We Sutori-heads are big fans of peer-to-peer reviews in general (customer power! right on!) and those last two sites in particular, but there are some big differences between them and Sutori.

Perhaps the biggest of these differences can be boiled down to the title of this post: products vs. experiences.

Now of course, finding the best products is a vital part of life as customer. But it’s only one part. There are so many other aspects of the overall experience that make us happy or unhappy customers.

In other words, it’s often more about HOW someone sells you something than WHAT they actually sell you.

Think of your own life. Think of the last three or four times you opened up your wallet. What left the biggest impression? Was it the thing you were paying for or something else?

Now quick . . . hold that thought and go post a story!

Add comment October 12th, 2006

Stories and shades of grey

Things have been a wee bit quiet on the Sutori blog lately as we’ve all been heads down trying to build or little labor of love.

I thought I would break the silence today by posting a sample story based on a personal experience. On a scale of 1-10, this one would have a goodwill rating of about 7, because even though I’m griping a bit, I still loves me some Adidas.

To me, this apparent contradiction illustrates something important about what we’re trying to do with Sutori. Like most relationships, the one between customers and businesses is not as simple as simple as love or hate, black or white. It’s more complicated than that. There are always shades of grey. There’s always context. There’s always a story.

So here’s one of mine:

I love Adidas . . . but this is not a love story.

Ever since I was a kid, the three stripes have made me happy. They have a certain iconic appeal that is seared into my consciousness. A sort of timeless beauty.

Because I fell under the Adidas spell as a kid in the seventies and eighties, I especially love retro-style Adidas. These days I think they call them “Adidas originals”.

So you can imagine how pleased I was when they opened a store in Vancouver (where I live) dedicated entirely to Adidas Originals. I discovered the store while walking past one day and a half hour later I walked out with a pair of shoes. A beautifully ugly pair of tennis shoes call Forest Hills.

I was a happy man.

But a few weeks later, I was less happy. The first problem was the holes. Turns out that when they were released in the early eighties Forest Hills were considered very innovative. First, they are extremely light. Sounds great so far. But they were also designed so that the feet of the tennis player wearing them woudl be cool and ventilated. To accomplish this, they basically put holes in the bottom of the shoes.

This makes perfect sense if you are playing tennis on a hot day. But a little less sense if you are walking around very rainy city like Vancouver. No one at the store told me about these holes when I bought the shoes.

Not a great start.,

But I was still happy. A little duct tape inside the toes and voila! No more soggy socks.

But then came the matter of the glue. There is a strip of suede across each toe of the shoe. And within 2 weeks of my purchase these strips started to come loose as the apparently cheap glue holding them on lost its stickiness.

That’s when my adventures in shoe repair began. A few months, a few experiments and a new glue collection later, I’ve finally arrived at a workable method to patch them up when the glue starts to give out. It involves a tube of crazy glue, a roll of packing tape and, most importantly, a whole lot of forgiveness for the “mark of the three stripes”.

So why should Adidas care?

After decades of loyalty, I tried on a pair of Pumas just last week.

1 comment July 14th, 2006

The 16 moods of sutori

I’ve written a few times about the “goodwill slider” that will allow you to quickly sum up the level of goodwill encapsulated in each story you post on Sutori.

Here, again, is a rough mock of what the slider will look like.

Along the way from angry read to happy orange, we’ve now determined that there will be 16 possible moods. Just for fun, here’s what we’re calling them, from best to worst:

  1. I think I’m in love
  2. Extremely delighted
  3. Delighted
  4. Happy
  5. Sort of happy
  6. Vaguely pleased
  7. Barely satisfied
  8. Neutral
  9. Kind of disappointed
  10. Mildly irritated
  11. Irritated
  12. Annoyed
  13. Flat out frustrated
  14. Officially angry
  15. Extremely angry
  16. Absolutely livid with rage

Keep in mind that these are just the starting point. Each story’s goodwill scores will also be impacted by the number of users who agree or disagree with it.

1 comment June 12th, 2006