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Get Satisfaction is a technical support website based in San Francisco, California, United States.[2] It was founded on January 31, 2007 by several people, including Lane Becker[3], Amy Muller, Thor Muller,[2] and Jonathan Grubb. It publicly launched in September 2007.[4] The website originated from Valleyschwag as a side project.[5] When the Valleyschwag service received over 1,500 subscribers, its customer service requirements increased dramatically. Realizing that customers were actually responding to the issues that other people brought up, the group behind Valleyschwag decided to create the precursor to Get Satisfaction,[2] first named Satisfaction Unlimited,[6] to take advantage of the community's enthusiasm of helping each other. The company describes its product as "people-powered customer service". On the website, anyone can ask a question, submit an idea or complaint, or give praise; all posts can be read by anyone. Companies can respond to issues regarding their products or services; official responses are marked as official answers to separate them from other responses. Users can rate responses based on how well they resolve the issue.[2]
Muller explained in an interview with BusinessWeek that the website aims to be simple, nothing that most customer-service solutions are too complex. He continues by stating that many are reactive instead of proactive, requiring customers to think as if they were an employee or librarian to find their answers. In contrast, Get Satisfaction approaches the problem by helping companies think more like customers.[2] Muller explained, “We want to create a Switzerland for companies and customers, with specific tools that allow people to get answers to their questions. [...] We want the best answers to rise to the top, and not get buried in online discussion forums.”[7] The website, which is free for both companies and users to use, has already begun offering its services to companies including Method Products, Timbuk2, Twitter, and Digg.[2] Several more companies later joined the website, including Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Comast, Mozilla, Qantas, Apple Inc., Dell, and Facebook.[8] The company's CEO is Wendy Lea, its CTO is Muller, and its President is Becker.[5] The website, which received an initial round of financing of $1.3 million,[6] receives financing from investors that include First Round Capital, O'Reilly Alphatech Ventures, and SoftTechVC.
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