Bing Listens: New Site Serves As A Suggestion Box For Bing Users

Bing already has close to 100 user-submitted ideas to improve its search engine. Will it act on any of them?

bing-listens-800Bing is looking for feedback from its users and has launched a virtual suggestion box to make it happen.

The new site is powered by UserVoice and lives at binglistens.uservoice.com. The company announcement describes Bing Listens as “a site where you can contribute your thoughts on how to make Bing better, vote on the ideas you like best, and tell both us and other users the cool and unique ways you use Bing.”

It’s aimed at consumers, not webmasters, and already has close to 100 posts. There are separate message boards for users to provide feedback on things like Bing’s homepage, image search, maps, mobile, Bing Rewards and more. Users can submit feedback and vote on what others have already posted. The top post right now is a request for Bing to improve its search engine outside the US that already has 150 votes:

Here in Denmark, for instance, Bing is considered a joke that is to be replaced with Google as fast as possible. This is because all the great features that Bing has in the US are not actually available. Thus, the result is a lackluster product.

The solution is the recognize that there is a world outside the US full of potential customers, who will use your product – if don’t treat them like second-rate customers.

Bing Listens is a nice gesture on Bing’s part. But it’ll come across as nothing more than a PR stunt if the company doesn’t follow through and act on some of the better suggestions.