I’ve got 37 comments and over 1,000 page views on my Zip.ca post (which is nothing but a link to the site — I haven’t used the service myself…and certainly don’t plan to after reading all the comments).

After all this time of people posting comments there, Meredith, product manager for Zip.ca, posted a response:

My name is Meredith and I am the product manager for Zip.ca. I noticed a lot of you post anonymously on this blog and I would like to invite you to send me or George, our Customer Service Manager, an email at suggestions@zip.ca. I would like to look into each of your complaints and ensure your concerns things being addressed properly.

What’s the important thing to look for? Well, if you don’t give customers an open place to interact with you, to give you feedback, if you force them through automated channels — they’ll look for a place to post feedback anywhere they can, which in this case is my blog post.

The other side: I’ve had that post up since February of this year. As a company today, especially one that appeals to technology savvy consumers (of which there are increasingly more), you need to monitor all the channels. Subscribe to PubSub search for your name and URL. Search Google for references to your company name or website.

Within an hour of Meredith’s post, someone else replied to her:

I must take note that you mentioned that most of us post anonymously. I should point out that even you posted anonymously - which is a double edge in my mind. I’m a zip.ca customer as well. Anyways, I’ve only been a member a little while (not trial).

I should point out that I am an internet professional and run my own business. One of my peeves about Zip.ca is that no matter how bad a problem is - there isn’t anybody I can call on the phone. Email is OK - but most companies never respond or respond slowly with bad information. Unless you have stellar email service, then you need to have phone service. Read the whole comment

Hey Zip.ca — contact me if you want to talk about how to use all these tools, and how to interact with your customers in a "real" way.