Hello:
Thank you for this feedback and for using our websites Q+A feature. As you mentioned, Social discussions are common place across many industries including retail. I often joke with friends that my 10 year old son would first watch web review videos before putting an item on his Christmas list.
I want to up front respond to: “while claiming being from B&H Photo”. This is absolutely not true. I and my staff answer many of these questions [as I am happy to do here] and anything labeled as answered by a “B&H STAFF MEMBER” came from my team; the rest are from customers. TurnTo does not answer any questions posted on our web site.
Our Websites Q+A is hosted by a company called TurnTo who is a leader in this industry. Many online dealers use them or similar companies. The reason being the mechanics behind the scenes are complex and letting a company who specializes in this field seemed like the better option than doing it ourselves. One drawback [which we have requested as a feature enhancement] is the notice E-mails do not come from a B&H domain.
Another feature of the TurnTo platform is you do in fact get E-mail notifications for a question you post without the ability to stop them from coming. According to TurnTo, these E-mails stop after 10 notifications. This is a TurnTo functionality and not something B&H has control over.
Let me explain how our approach to Q+A differs from some of the other E-retailers that have this feature. These platforms by design; run on their own. You may notice many question s on other web sites that have no answers, responses that are inappropriate [for many reasons] or have wrong information. My staff monitors all questions and after a period of 24 hours, if a question has not received an answer, a moderator assigns the question for answering to specific agent’s familiar with the product. We also review customer responses for quality control to the best of our ability [the volume of customer participation prevents us from reviewing every response].
We do as practice work with outside companies to better serve our customers. We do research these businesses before partnering with them and our owner never has nor would never tolerate the selling of customer information for marketing or advertising purposes. We have done this for some time and to date have never had a problem.
Please see this link for more details:
Privacy & Security B&H also shares information with outside companies that perform services for B&H. For example, when a customer signs up for our e-mail newsletters, B&H will provide the customers e-mail address to third party e-mail distribution companies that transmit e-mails on behalf of B&H. Your e-mail address will not be used by these companies for any purpose other than for the transmission of e-mails for B&H.
We may retain outside companies to assist us in managing our customer information database or to update and correct customer information for future marketing purposes. B&H takes steps to ensure the confidentiality of your information and to make sure it is not used for other purposes.
B&H has carefully selected a few companies to assist us in better understanding how our customers use our site. We will place cookies on your computer to collect information. The information that is collected through these cookies tells us things, such as which search engine referred you, how you navigated around our site, which pages you browsed, what you purchased and what traffic is driven by banner ads and e-mails. The companies analyze the information they collect from our site and return it to us through a secure connection. We use this information to help us understand your interests in our site and how to better serve you. It also helps us provide you with more personalized product offerings.
Thank you again for posting your concerns and asking for our assistance as Henry and myself are always happy to help. I hope this addresses your concerns and regret it caused you any doubt.
C h u c k C a p r i o l a
Live Chat and E-Mail Sales Manager
B&H Photo-Video
B&H Photo Video Digital Cameras, Photography, Camcorders
Thank you for choosing B&H, we appreciate your business.
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