We know that you may have questions, so we have provided a Frequently Asked Questions section to help answer your question as you navigate our site.  If our FAQ's don't answer your question, please feel free to contact us with your questions.

Question: What is Rust Reviews?

Answer: We bring your “community reputation” to the Internet by collecting customer reviews for your business and displaying them, with a detailed description of your business, as a web listing. Today, most consumers and businesses use the Internet to search for reliable product and service providers, and they are looking for credible evidence of business reputation before they buy. Rust Reviews responds to this growing need to help consumer and business purchasers find the best suppliers to provide products and services.

Question: Why should I join Rust Reviews?

Answer: You should join if reviews and comments from your current and former customers, displayed on the Internet, will bring new customers to your business. So if most of your customers and clients are satisfied with your services and products, your reviews will be mainly positive, and Rust Reviews will bring more and better customers and clients to your business.

You should join if knowledge of your business reputation will help you create a trusting relationship with new customers and strengthen your relationships with current customers.

You should join if you want to make your business more visible on the Web. By itself, your Rust Reviews web listing will provide you with an effective Internet marketing presence. In conjunction with your existing website, your Rust Reviews web listing will help you see much better results from your Internet marketing.

You should join if you make an honest effort to resolve the inevitable customer problems that do come up. By your replies to customer reviews, you can demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction. Consumers know that some people are never satisfied and mistakes happen, but your reputation will grow if you document a reasonable effort to respond to any problems.

Question: Why would I want to see reviews from my customers?

Answer: If you're a smart business manager, you know that you need continuous feedback from your customers. The market is always changing, your customers are changing, and your competition is changing – you can't afford to depend on a once-a-year survey with a low response rate for that feedback.

We all know that a dissatisfied customer might not complain to you, but they will eagerly complain about you to friends and associates. Wise business owners and managers know that they are much better off when they learn of any dissatisfaction early and then respond appropriately. Rust Reviews allows you to publicly reply to every review, and potential consumers will always appreciate a business that makes a sincere effort to respond to a problem. We all know that you can't please everyone – but it's important for consumers to know that you try!

Question: Can I delete a review I don't like?

Answer: No. However, you can post a reply to the review to demonstrate how you responded to the issues in the review.

Question: What is included on my Rust Reviews Member Business Listing?

Answer: As a Rust Reviews Member, you receive a single web listing for each of your business locations with your contact information; business description; written directions to your business with a mapping function, a section for specials, promotions, and announcements; and local reviews from your customers and clients. You can update your business information yourself through password-protected access, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Consumers can find your Rust Reviews listing through the major Internet search engines or through your Rust Reviews business listing address.

Question: What types of membership do you have?

Answer: Our Local Membership provides you with a web listing you can update 24/7, the collection and display of reviews from your customers, a capability for you to easily reply to reviews, and personalized advice to help you collect more reviews from your customers. Subscription fees are slightly higher for larger businesses with more than 50 full-time employees.

Our National Membership also provides an enhanced search capability for businesses with a regional or national customer base. Potential customers can find your listing even though they may search for your business type in other areas of the Country. For example, if you provide trailer service and sales in the Mid-Atlantic region, your business will appear in search results for Norfolk, VA, and Baltimore, MD, as well as in results for your actual location. If you provide software development services to clients nationwide, your business will be listed nationwide with a National Membership.

A business with multiple locations will purchase a membership for each one. We use the number of employees at each location as a rough measure of business size – and level of effort we need to allocate to service the location. Please use your average number of full-time-equivalent employees when selecting a payment plan. If you have part-time employees, just divide the total number of hours worked in a typical week by 40 to find your full-time-equivalent employee number.

All Memberships also include a 10% discount toward the purchase of the CSRSI PCI Toolkit, which provides you with the support you need to become compliant with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. The PCI Toolkit includes the following:

1. Customized Written Policies
2. Customized Written Procedures
3. Customized Written Employee Handouts
4. Training Aids
5. Detailed Assistance with the Self Assessment Questionnaire
6. Quarterly Penetration Scanning
7. Industry Specific Information
8. Detailed Glossary
9. Breach Insurance upon completion

We also charge a one-time setup fee for each new membership.

Question: How will potential customers find my business in Rust Reviews?

Answer: In five ways:

1. By using a search engine like Google™ or MSN™. Your Rust Reviews web listing will appear in search engine results, and consumers can click from the results list directly to your listing. These search engines index your Rust Reviews web listing the same way they would index any website. If you provide a full and complete description of your unique products, services, and location, your Rust Reviews listing will frequently appear ahead of your existing website (if you have one) and often on the first results page for various search terms. Consumers do not need to visit the Rust Reviews home page first to find your business.
2. By providing potential customers with your unique Rust Reviews web address on your business cards and other marketing materials. With an Internet connection, these prospects can type in your address, and they will be taken directly to your web listing.
3. By searching for your business at RustReviews.com. Prospects can search for your business by entering business type or your name.
4. By searching for another business at RustReviews.com. Whenever a prospect searches for a business on RustReviews.com, a list of all other Rust Reviews member businesses in the area is displayed below the results of the search. So even if a prospect is searching for a florist, he or she will also be presented with a list of other member businesses within a user-selected radius of the search location. If you are a National Member, your listing will display whenever a user searches for your business type.
5. By searching for a product or service on our Blog – www.rustreviews.blogspot.com. All Rust Reviews Member web listings and websites are linked from corresponding blog entries.

Question: Why will my customers submit reviews at Rust Reviews?

Answer: You will ask them to – the benefits of Rust Reviews membership require effort on your part. Your regular customers and clients know you best, so they are in the best position to provide you with feedback. Since you actively solicit reviews from your customers, you will quickly build lots of reputation information to enhance your Rust Reviews business web listing and bring more customers to your business.

If you have email addresses for your past and current customers, you can send them an email with a link to your Rust Reviews business listing. Rust Reviews will provide you with an email template. Your customers just click on the link in the email, select the “Submit new review” link, and then pick a “strength of recommendation” rating and provide comments. It is very simple and since your customers only provide a recommendation rating and comments, it is also very quick. The process has been designed to take your customers less than two minutes to complete.

You can also provide your Rust Reviews Web address with recommendation submission instructions on a postcard. Rust Reviews will provide you with a postcard template. Your customer only has to access the Internet, type in your unique Rust Reviews web address into a browser window, click “Submit new review” on your Web listing, and then select a “strength of recommendation” level and provide some comments. It’s quick and simple.

Question: Why are your "reviews" in the form of a recommendation rating and comments?

Answer: A recent study published in the Harvard Business Review noted that businesses invest lots of time and money to measure consumer satisfaction. However, the author found that a single measure – the willingness of consumers to recommend a business – correlates most closely with business success. Rust Reviews collects this most critical information from your customers and displays it with other information about your business in an easy-to-search format.

Customers dislike lengthy surveys and questionnaires. The questions are often not applicable to the customers' experience or measure attributes that customers do not consider important. Our review just consists of a "strength of recommendation" rating and required comments, so your customers can quickly tell you what's most important to them.

For local retail stores and restaurants, consumers are interested in learning why they should go out of their way to visit your store. What sets your store or restaurant apart so much that's it's worth visiting, and what can the consumer expect when they visit? Small businesses have told us often that their best customers come from referrals, and Rust Reviews brings that referral information to the Internet.

For professionals, contractors, and service providers, reputation information is not provided by memberships in professional organizations, the Better Business Bureau, or by listing professional credentials. Information about your reputation is most credible when presented as recommendations and comments from your past and current customers.

Some businesses provide customer testimonials in their marketing materials, but those are not credible since consumers correctly assume that only the most favorable customer comments are selected for display by the business.

Question: Do you screen the recommendations and business replies you receive?

Answer: Yes we do. We screen and do not display submissions containing profanity, hate speech, racial remarks, and so on. We also screen the reviews for signs that someone might be trying to "stuff the ballot box" for a particular business. If we have a reasonable basis for believing that a review is not valid, it will not be displayed.

Question: What happens if someone submits a "not recommended" rating and comments?

Answer: We will give you a warning that it has been received and you will have at least 48 hours to prepare a response for posting on your Rust Reviews business listing. Sometimes you will have a problem with a customer. In your reply to the complaint, you can explain what happened and what you did to try to satisfy the customer. Prospective customers want to know how you respond to problems.

You want to know when a customer has had a bad experience. No business is perfect, no matter how hard it strives to excel, and a few customers will leave a business unhappy, even if it's a great business. An unhappy customer will tell neighbors and friends about the bad experience and they will tell their friends and so on – often without the business knowing about the customer's dissatisfaction. It's much better for your business to give customers an easy way to provide feedback, even if negative, and for you to be able to respond to the problem and to provide a public response to the complaint, which is displayed on the website next to the complaining submission.

Question: What happens if I get lots of "not recommended" ratings from my customers or if I'm not satisfied with Rust Reviews?

Answer: If the customer reviews and comments at Rust Reviews are not helping your business, we will issue you a refund of your remaining subscription fee and remove your Web listing, recommendations, and comments from Rust Reviews. You can cancel at any time.

Question: What kinds of businesses are you inviting to join?

Answer: We are inviting all kinds of businesses to join Rust Reviews because we feel that they can all from our Web site, and our marketing research shows that prospective customers want easy access to local reputation information for all businesses. Prospects want to know how your previous customers feel about your products and services before they decide to purchase from you.

We also expect that local professionals, contractors and service businesses can especially benefit from membership in Rust Reviews. Consumers want access to reputation information when they select of vet clinic, realtor, contractor, car repair business, pet sitter, etc.

Question: How can I use Rust Reviews in my other marketing?

Answer: You should provide prospects with a direct link to your Rust Reviews business listing and comments. When you join, you will be assigned a unique Rust Reviews Web address based on your business name – www.yourbusinessname.rustreviews.com. Just provide that Web address in your marketing materials and your prospects will be able to go directly to your web listing without searching for your business. You can also use the address to link from your existing website directly to your customer comments at Rust Reviews.com, perhaps using "See what my customers are saying" as the link.

Question: How and where you plan to advertise your web site. What is it that is going to make people come to your site?

Answer: First, as we explained above, if you provide a complete description of your business and location, you update your listing frequently, and you solicit frequent reviews from your customers, your unique Rust Reviews business listing will do very well in search engine rankings. So people will find your Rust Reviews listing by using the major search engines – consumers do not need to visit RustReviews.com first.

Also, you and all of the other members will do a lot to drive visitors to Rust Reviews. When you ask customers to provide recommendations at Rust Reviews, they'll see that other businesses are also members, and they'll return to Rust Reviews when they're looking for members in other business categories. So every member helps to promote the site for the member and all other members.

You (and other) members will also promote the site by linking from your existing website to your Web listing at Rust Reviews. You can also use your link in emails to prospective clients inviting them to see what your other clients are saying about you.

Whenever someone searches on our website, we return results in two sections. The first section provides results directly applicable to the search criteria and the second section lists all Rust Reviews members near the search location. So we're highlighting all Rust Reviews members in our search results and not just the ones in the categories being searched.

Question: Why I would want to join now instead of waiting until there are lots of local business members in my area?

Answer: Why would you want to wait for an improved Web presence that could help your business grow right away? Your Rust Reviews web listing will appear in search engine results (Google™, etc.) within a few weeks.

It will take you some time to collect recommendations from your customers. The earlier you start, the more quickly you can get your customer reputation to work for you. It may be that only 25% of your customers follow through with a promise to provide a recommendation. We make it very quick and easy for them to provide you with feedback, but human nature being what it is, not everyone will respond. But over several months those collected recommendations will provide lots of positive information that prospective clients can use in deciding to select you to provide products or services.

Question: How is Rust Reviews different from the various other websites that provide business reviews? Aren't the other sites free?

Answer: We are better in many ways! Many of these other sites rely on social networks of small numbers of amateur reviewers. So a few people write lots of reviews, and they likely either won't review your business or won't know much about your business when they write a review about it. These sites offer lots of business listings, but very few reviews. Even businesses with lots of customers might get only a few reviews per year.

Because Rust Reviews makes it very easy for your customers to respond to your requests for reviews, you will quickly accumulate many recommendations from your regular customers. None of the other review sites are as quick and easy for you and your customers to use.

Many other websites require customers to become members before they can search the listings of rated businesses or before they can submit feedback. There is no such restriction at Rust Reviews, and any of your customers can submit a review for you quickly and easily without purchasing a membership. No one will need to purchase a membership to view your business information on Rust Reviews.

The other sites are not free if you include business information in your listing. Rust Reviews is better-designed, easier to use, costs less, and does more for your marketing than any of these other sites.

Most other review sites also sell other advertising and enhanced results listings for a fee. They may display your business information along with a lingerie advertisement or they may display your information with a suggestion that consumers might want to visit your competitor who paid more than you did. None of that occurs at Rust Reviews – we do not sell other advertising, and we will not refer visitors from your web listing to another member's web listing.

Whether you know it or not, you are already subject to reviews on the Internet. A number of websites list your business, whether you asked for it or not, and they prompt visitors to provide reviews. If you ignore this fact, your most passionate customers – positive and negative – will find their way to this array of websites. Unless you check all of these websites frequently, you will not know when a negative review of your business has been submitted. You are better off if you ask your customers to provide reviews at one web location.

Question: Do I need to pay a higher rate for better search result placement?

Answer: No, we work with our members to improve search engine placement for all.

Question: What if I'm not interested in asking customers to provide feedback through Rust Reviews? My business is doing well and I know my customers are satisfied.?

Answer: If you've been in business for some time, you know that it's a dynamic world. Customers come and go. If you want your business to grow and if you want customers to start their relationship with your business with more confidence in your reputation, then you need to join Rust Reviews.

Question: What about potentially fraudulent reviews?

Answer: We screen all reviews before they are posted. We look for reviews that violate the terms of use; in other words, reviews that include profanity, vulgarity, hate speech, sexual references, or are defamatory. All such reviews are stricken and are not displayed on Rust Reviews. We also use more sophisticated screening techniques, which are proprietary to Rust Reviews, to identify recommendations that are potentially fraudulent. If we have a reasonable basis for believing that the reviews and recommendations are fraudulent, they will not be displayed.

We ask businesses to check their reviews listing frequently and to notify us via email, when they question the truthfulness of a particular review. If Rust Reviews investigates and has a reasonable basis for believing that the review is fraudulent, we will remove it from display. However, a truthful review will not be removed merely because it is negative. If a business disagrees with a particular review, the business may provide a response, which will be displayed with the review.

Question: What is the purpose of the charity selection when I join Rust Reviews?

Answer: Rust Reviews is a community – focused business. We want to reinforce that sense of community for our website by teaming with a select group of charities in the areas we service. Since Rust Reviews will expand more rapidly than we can team with local charities in your area, we ask you to select from one of the worthy charities on our list even though it may serve a different area.

When a business makes a selection of one of the charities on our list, that charity's logo can be displayed with the information listing of that business. At the end of the year, we will use each business selection as a vote in determining how to split our charitable donation for the year. Our goal is to donate 10% of our profits back to charitable causes.

Question: How does my business join?

Answer: It's easy. Just click on the "Join Rust Reviews" link and enter information about your business, read and agree with the Member Contract, and select a Good Works charity and Membership Level. You can pay for your annual membership by check.

Question: How is the Rust Reviews Blog (www.rustreviews.blogspot.com) related to RustReviews.com?

Answer: We ask for consumers to recommend good businesses to Rust Reviews. When we get a recommendation, we will post the information to our Rust Reviews Blog, and we will also invite the business to join Rust Reviews as a member. A posting on our blog will likely bring new customers to these recommended businesses. When these businesses join Rust Reviews, this Blog notation will be augmented with a link to the business's Rust Reviews web listing providing additional information and reviews.

Question: Where did the idea for Rust Reviews come from?

Answer: The idea came from several sources. One co-founder, Rachel Rust, grew up in the small town of Wharton, Texas, where businesses established a reputation for quality, service, and value or they did not survive. Our other co-founder, Paul Sherland, lived in many places growing up and during a military career. He realized how valuable business reputation information is to people moving to new communities with few contacts in the local area. These new residents are always looking for customer recommendations when seeking a product or service.

Consumers today are looking for the same business reputation information that was available from neighbors and friends in Wharton and other small towns. Rust Reviews provides that current reputation information in the form of plentiful, local reviews of Member Businesses.

Question: Why should I seek Rust Reviews Member Businesses?

Answer: Rust Reviews Members adhere to the highest standards of customer value and service. They excel because they actively solicit reviews from their customers, they act on this feedback to improve their service, and they are proud to provide customer reviews to the public.

In most communities, businesses vie for customers through advertising, but this advertising doesn't provide potential customers with any way to judge the businesses. Rust Reviews businesses provide you with the plentiful customer reputation information you need to make an informed purchase decision.

Since Rust Reviews members ask their customers to provide reviews, aren't the results biased?

Answer: The only way to get completely unbiased reviews would be to conduct an exit poll of customers leaving a business. We strongly believe that our process of collecting a lot of reviews for Rust Reviews members is the next best way to assess their reputation for customer service and value. Customers will only provide reviews if businesses ask them to do so and if it's easy and quick for the customers to respond. Because our members are active in soliciting feedback, consumers will have access to more and better customer reputation information from Rust Reviews businesses.

The other business review sites are hard for customers to use or they require that reviewers become members -- so they collect few reviews. From the study of statistics, we know that it is dangerous to draw conclusions from small sample sizes. You will have much more complete information about the customer reputation of a Rust Reviews business when you research the purchase of a product or service.

Question: How do I find a Rust Reviews business?

Answer: There are several ways. First as for any other web listing, you can use the major Internet search engines to locate Rust Reviews member business listings. Just add "Rust Reviews" to your search terms to ensure that any Rust Reviews businesses appear high in the results listing. You can also go to RustReviews.com and search for businesses by name or business type. You can also check the list of businesses on our Blog – www.rustreviews.blogspot.com, and click the link for more reviews for Member Businesses.

Question: Why aren't there Rust Reviews members in my area?

Answer: We've just launched the site so very few businesses have heard of us. So help your favorite businesses grow by telling them about the benefits of Rust Reviews membership.

When you research a purchase, ask businesses why they are not Rust Reviews members. Membership starts at less than $1 a day, businesses can join online in just a few minutes, and Rust Reviews can start collecting reviews for them right away.

Question: Why would a business be reluctant to join Rust Reviews?

Answer: If a business is not interested in providing you with access to reviews from past customers, it could say a lot about the business's real attitude about customer service. You should ask the business why it is reluctant to collect and display feedback from its customers.

Question: How is Rust Reviews different from other websites providing evaluations and ratings of businesses?

Answer: In many ways, we are unique. First, any customer can quickly and easily provide a review, and any prospective customer can view reviews and recommendations for member businesses. With some websites, the customers must first purchase memberships to provide feedback and to search business listings. Once you do purchase a membership, these websites will track your visits to the site, and some hound you for feedback based on the business classifications you have searched.

Second, we strongly encourage our members to solicit reviews and recommendations from their customers. We also contact member businesses with no review activity to encourage them to be more energetic in obtaining reviews from customers.

Third, since we provide memberships for businesses instead of consumers, our member businesses are motivated to update their listings to provide prospective customers with current business information in a standard format. Each member listing provides consumers with contact information; a complete description of the business; hours of operation; a mapping function; a description of sales, discounts, and promotions; and a link to the business's website.

Some review sites only apply to selected sectors of the business economy, and they are often based only on infrequent inspection visits. One of our motivations for starting Rust Reviews was a visit to a highly rated campground that we found had apparently deteriorated dramatically since the last official inspection visit. The plentiful reviews available for Rust Reviews members will indicate customer service changes more quickly than the review websites that use inspection visits.

Question: How hard is it to provide a review?

Answer: We make reviewing very easy and very quick. All member businesses are provided with a unique web address that provides one-click access to a review entry page associated with their business. We encourage our business members to provide that web address to customers to encourage feedback. If you don't have the business web address, you can enter a review without it. Our member businesses want your feedback – positive and negative – because they are always striving to improve. They can use your positive comments and even constructive negative comments to train staff members and to improve their focus on providing the best possible customer experience.

How can I recommend a good business to Rust Reviews?

Answer: Just click on the "Recommend a Business" link on the left side of the navigation bar and fill in a simple form. We need the business name, some location information, and the initial recommendation rating and comments. We will contact these businesses and ask them to join. We will also help promote your recommended business by including your review in our Blog listing.

Question: What kind of businesses should I recommend to Rust Reviews?

Answer: Any businesses that you would feel comfortable recommending to a friend or neighbor. If a business has done a good job for you, and you would recommend them to others, please tell us about them.

Question: Can the business identify who provides the review?

Answer: No, unless you say something in the review that identifies you (such as "We sat at the table by the window and talked politics with our server.") You can provide your name, email address, and phone number, but Rust Reviews will not disclose this information to other parties (please see our Privacy Policy). We will only contact you if we have questions about the review. In any case, your contact information is optional, and your decision to not provide it will not affect how your review is received.

Question: Why is there a delay between my submission of a review and its posting on the Rust Reviews website?

Answer: We screen all reviews, recommendations, and business replies, and it normally takes 48 to 72 hours to complete the screening process. Rust Reviews works to ensure that the reviews we display are valid, temperate in language, and constructive. We screen all reviews for compliance with our terms of use policy. Any profanity, vulgarity, sexual references, or hate speech will keep the review off the site. We reserve the right to screen out and refuse to post any review that violates our terms of use, and the decision to cut a review is made in our sole discretion.

We will also screen out attempts to stuff the "ballot box" with either positive or negative reviews and recommendations that are not based on an actual customer experience. Again, our decision to refuse to post any review is made in our sole discretion based upon our reasonable judgment as the validity of the review. If we feel that any review is fraudulent and not based on a customer's actual visit to the member business, it will not be posted.

Question: Why should I feel more comfortable in providing reviews and recommendations to Rust Reviews than to other review websites?

Answer: Many other review websites sell memberships to consumers, but they have no contractual relationship with the businesses being rated. If a consumer submits a negative review to other websites, there is the possibility that the business could sue the consumer for defamation or libel. Rust Reviews contracts with business members and our contract prohibits suits for libel, defamation, and similar torts based on the negative reviews that may be submitted for that business. Check the small print associated with many of the other websites, and you will find that they will not protect you if you are sued for providing critical comments or a negative rating.

Question: What is the significance of the charity logo associated with many of the business information listings?

Answer: Rust Reviews is a community – focused business. In a small town, the charities and service organizations depend on the generosity and sponsorship of the local business community.

We want to reinforce that sense of community for Rust Reviews by teaming with a select group of charities in the areas we service – our Good Works Team. We will also join with a few national charities to provide a choice in those areas where there are no Rust Reviews Good Works Team members. When our member businesses make a selection of one of the charities on our list, that charity's logo can be displayed with the information listing of that business. You can learn more about each charity by clicking on the logo.

At the end of the year, we will use each business selection as a vote in determining how to split our charitable donation for the year. Our goal is to donate 10% of our profits back to charities in the communities we serve.