Town chosen in pioneering project trial for company (From Ilkley Gazette)
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Town chosen in pioneering project trial for company
5:00pm Monday 20th August 2012 in News By Amanda Greaves
Richard Bennett and Martin Jones promote their Yapback business venture in Ilkley, where the scheme is being trialled
Businesses and customers in Ilkley have been chosen as the guinea pigs for a new online and mobile phone application enabling people to give feedback about companies and their services.
Entrepreneurs Martin Jones and Richard Bennett chose Ilkley as the testbed for their new business venture, Yapback, and believe it could benefit both local firms and consumers.
The pair arrived in town on Tuesday promoting the trial version of their venture, and working on building up network users before developing their project further.
Similar to travel review website TripAdvisor, Yapback encourages customers who visit local shops, supermarkets, hairdressers, professional services and other businesses to download the application to their mobile phones and use it to leave reviews and feedback about the services or facilities.
As well as letting other potential customers know what to expect, the network will also let businesses signed up to the scheme know what is being said about them, providing useful feedback to help them improve or tailor their services to meet demand.
The application will always be free to users, says Mr Jones, 29, but there are plans to eventually offer a paid-for premier account to businesses, featuring additional tools such as the ability to promote offers or contact information on the network.
All feedback ‘yapped’ will also be ‘tweeted’ on microblogging and social network website Twitter.
Mr Jones, of Leeds, said: “We’ve chosen Ilkley to host our first trial as we wanted to start in a small but bustling town with a reputation for thriving local and independent businesses, which is who we think could benefit the most from the customer engagement and exposure Yapback encourages.”
The trial is expected to run for a week, with prizes being awarded to the top ‘yappers’ and businesses of the week. The entrepreneurs were also expected to visit a local business networking session this morning to further promote the venture.
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