Share a letter prior to sending it -

Excellent suggestion!!!

I'm thrilled to see someone who appreciates constructive criticism,
first of all. And you've written a great letter with a excellent
suggestion as a result.
Planetfeedback at its finest!

are doing a terrific job! This site was created as a forum that
allows consumers to sound off on consumer issues. When used properly
this site is an awesome tool. Consumers write a letter to the company
in question hoping to receive a response back. Even if a response
isn't received, consumers have the ability to "get the word out" to
others about products and services they liked or disliked.

I believe that first time letter writers find this site, write their
letter, then choose to share the letter because they genuinely believe
they will receive nothing but praise and sympathy in regards to the
issue at hand. What they don't expect is to be blasted with comments
such as their child is a "brat", or apparently they don't know the
"true" meaning of Christmas etc. etc. Anything but constructive
criticism.

Honestly, I think that this site would work more smoothly if the only
people that were allowed to comment on letters were those that
actually made constructive remarks. Remarks like shenanigans, your
child must be a "brat" etc. should have no place on here. If I read a
complaint that I feel is false, I choose to ignore it. Children have
"off" moments sometimes, does that mean they are all "brats"?

That said, I certainly don't believe that we should give those who
lend no constructive criticism yet another chance to beat the letter
writer down. They already experience plenty of that when posting
their letter for real.

To those of you with screen names other than your real name:
Remember to change your screen name to your real name before writing
the letter.
I go a letter in the mail including a coupon for a free can of Nestle
Good Start soy addressed to one Juicy Jade.

Good idea.

ok correcting spelling in grammer? THAT is called Spell check. For a
good letter.. I think you need: All CORRECT details, and a FAIR
suggestion/compensation. Like, that lady that got mad at BK and wants
free meals for a year? give me a break.. THAT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN (I
wrote it like that on purpose, so please, no grammer corrects on that)

Why in the world would anyone think this suggestion made someone at
PFB upset? We have always welcomed feedback and will continue to do
so.

Over the past couple of weeks, the community has made it clear they
think we don't respond quickly enough to suggestions (or anything else
for that matter). We're doing our best to correct that and the quick
response to this letter is an example of our efforts.

In addition, the community has made it clear they'd like some kind of
answer to suggestions, even if it's to turn them down. In fact, in
our response to this letter, we used the exact verbiage that Tracy M.
suggested in a recent comment in the suggestion box. We've been
roundly criticized for being too vague in our previous answers (ie:
we'll put it on the list) and now we're being criticized for being too
direct.

The reason we were able to turn this suggestion down so quickly is it
has come up before. And, when it did, we gave it a lot of serious
consideration before deciding not to implement it. We came to the
same conclusion that several have in this post...we dont believe
anyone will use such a feature.

People don't share their letters on PFB in order to be told how to
write letters. They don't share their letters to be told their
complaint is all screwy. They share their letters for two simple
reasons...to share their experience with others and, more importantly,
to leverage the implied power of bad publicity in order to get what
they want. That is the driving force behind 99% of the letters shared
on PFB.

That means there's little likelihood that folks are gonna rush to have
their letters purposefully critiqued. Besides, as another commenter
in this thread pointed out, that's already happening on a daily basis
anyways and it's clear most, if not all, letter writers don't
particularly appreciate it.

As mentioned in another post, we are on a less than shoestring budget.
There is not a lot of money lying around at the current time for
programming improvements. Hopefully that will change at some point.
If we dont implement a suggestion, it has nothing to do with the idea
that we dont want suggestions or that we have a culture of ignoring
our users and everything to do with we dont have the resources
available to do so at the moment. It's as simple as that. We don't
like it any more than you do and almost all our efforts are focused on
changing that.

We will say, though, that Calm has an EXCELLENT idea which we can
implement without using up resources. Therefore, it is with great
pride, we announce the "Letter Writing Help" blog. You can view it at
this link:

http://www.planetfeedback.com/index.php?level2=account_public&user_id=
651510

We will add the link to the "new blog" section of the main page and
we've already put verbiage in the letter generator pointing letter
writers to the page.

Thanks Calm!

I'm sorry but what you put makes no sense to me... could you rephrase
it?

But planetfeedback already has the methods to route traffic to certain
pages, whether it's through a blog, the 'top 25' sidebar, or the 15
minutes of fame.

That's a terrible idea. It would allow all of the scammers to 'shore
up' the inconsistencies in their letter before sending it.

That's a great idea!

I hope PFB will reconsider this at some point in the future. I think
this is a very good idea.

Really it would only take something like the Suggestion Box, with
people posting their draft letters and then other people being able to
comment on those posts.

I agree that many people would not use it, but by having everything in
one place some people who wouldn't post their own letters might learn
something from the discussions about letters that have similar
strengths and/or weaknesses to theirs.

Sounds like a great idea to me, and it's a win-win situation: not only
would the letters get better, but the comments would get better as
well since they now have a chance to actually improve the letter.
Very interesting, and likely worth a try.

This is an excellent suggestion. And I'm happy that Eunice is a
person that recognizes that having others HELP with letters is a
positive thing.

Unfortunately, if PF has this feature, it won't be used much. Unless
PF REQUIRED you to get at least 10 comments (or wait 5 days) before
sending a letter, most people (I think) would not use it. Too many
people like to dash off angry letters. And then, they never come back
to read the comments. Or, if they do, they get upset.

So, while I think PF's quick refusal response (odd, since they usually
just don't say anything about suggestions that aren't being
implemented -- I have to think the idea is upsetting to someone in PF
management) was a little too quick, I don't believe it'd be worth the
programming time given that it simply wouldn't be used much.

That said, how hard is it really to have a "draft" mode?

Meow! Well, I thought it was a great suggestion anyway. :) As far as
spelling and grammar though, one idea might be to actually write your
letter in some type of word processor (Word, Works, etc) so that the
spellchecker can at least help with some of the mistakes and then
copy/paste it into the letter form. As far as quality, writing a
letter much as you would any business letter (i.e. no cussing, slang,
etc), including any pertinent details (location, date, time, names)
and not making outlandish demands will usually go very far in helping
you.

No, we are not considering this at this time, but thanks for the
suggestion.

Great suggestion!

Great suggestion. Can you post this in the suggestion box?

http://www.planetfeedback.com/index.php?level2=blog_viewpost&topic_id=
291316