A new hi-tech customer feedback tool has been launched to take the hassle out of complaining.

Feedback Scheme, which has just gone live, aims to make it easier for customers to make complaints to retailers by allowing them to direct their complaint straight to their local store manager - doing away with long questionnaires that often just go to a head office administrator.

Customers enter the name of the shop and its location on the Feedback Scheme site and leave their comments, which the site then sends to the targeted local store manager. Customers can monitor when their feedback has been read, and receive a response.

Founder Jamie Snape, who invested more than £100,000 of his own money, said the scheme would revolutionise the way consumers made complaints by providing them with a single, familiar system.

“If the customer becomes happy with how a complaint is handled, that is recorded. A manager in Bradford could be incredibly grumpy and head office wouldn’t know about it, but for the first time they really will,” he said.

Snape said 50-100 independent retailers, including independent c-stores and off-licences, had signed up to Feedback Scheme in its first few days. He is aiming to sign up “the majority of retailers” within two years of launch.

“The target is 1,000 a month to start with, picking up in quarter two and three,” Snape added.

“We really want Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi. We want them all. But we think it is just as important that single stores can join. That’s the beauty of it.”

Snape said he wanted to get case studies together about how the scheme was working for independents before he pitched the idea to the multiples. Participating businesses are charged £71.88 a year for each location.

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