Consumer advisory Council

Written by admin on April 12th, 2011

The consumer advisory group is an online research group. This online research group has consumers who share their thoughts and views about products and services. The participants are normal consumers who can freely share their thoughts and opinions about the products they use daily. The participants have to first register to the network. The registered participants get frequent mails and surveys that they have to attend. The consumers who attend such surveys may be given gifts, certificates, sweepstakes or more for their valued feedback about the products. Many companies participate in this process, and they are called affiliates. They are registered to the network as well. The information obtained from such a network is exchanged with companies which help the companies to provide a better investment idea and develop strategies. This can be also called as a research because the data collected from this process is used to understand the companies and their products better. These help the companies to understand what the consumers think about their products and it gives them a chance for them to improve on the services. The company also gets an idea on what new product to introduce and how to introduce so that it will impress the consumer. The marketing panel of the organization can also decide upon how to improve its marketing efforts. The panel also gets to know what kind of advertising are effective and the methods to improve the overall shopping experience.

Consumer advisory group have increased considerably nowadays as there are numerous consumer related issues. The consumer is given many options such as tests, focus groups, surveys, etc to choose from.

The recent development in consumer advisory groups is about Chennai getting many consumer advisory councils within 15 days. This is a new step from the government of Tamil Nadu and it is definitely a very essential and beneficial thought. As per the government, consumer advisory council will be setup in the city of Chennai within a fortnight. The consumer advisory council will be helpful to the consumers in and around the city to make them understand their rights and fight for them. Chennai is the busiest cities in the country and the people of the city need guide and support as a consumer. The consumer council will be an eye opener to most of the consumers. The commissioner of the consumer protection department said that the group will initially function out of the department’s office at Ezhilagam, in Chepauk. But it was realized that it had to be moved to a more business prone area such as T.Nagar. So later it might be moved to T.Nagar. The council also has a telephone helpline that can be used by the consumers for reporting their problems. But there are problems with this as well because one cannot expect that all problems can be solved through a telephone conversation. So the telephone support is limited and the council advices the consumers to have a face to face discussion about the problems. The council handles pre-purchase and post-purchase complaints and all the complaints are to be documented.  The documents will serve as a proof so that they can be kept for future reference. A monthly report can be taken about the companies and the consumers who face similar problems can be given the highest priority. The complaints on these companies can also be posted online so that other consumers can rate the company.

There are many sites now that are operating with the motive of helping consumers. Sites such as consumerdaddy, mouthshut help the consumers to know about a company and their products better. The websites allow the consumers to share their views about a product. The users can praise a product or write a criticism. The score of the product is displayed at the last depending upon their review. These websites do it with public interest. The consumer can also file a complaint on a product, the website has a complaint validation team that validates the complaints. If the complaint is genuine then the team contacts the company and asks the company to respond to the complaint lodged by the consumer. The score of the company is lowered if the company fails to respond to the complaint. There have been many success stories, in which the companies have responded and willingly offered compensation to appease the affected consumers.  

In a country where there are more than a lakh cases pending at the consumer courts, the consumers have no where to go unless such non profit organizations willingly come to the rescue.

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