Kelvin MacKenzie gets Rupert Murdoch push for A Spokesman Said customer complaints website
Media entrepreneur Kelvin MacKenzie has won backing from media tycoon Rupert Murdoch for a new website aimed at giving disgruntled consumers a chance to name and shame companies offering them poor service.
A Spokesman Said, which was officially launched yesterday, will be funded by MacKenzie and a group of private investors, including Murdoch and entrepreneur Jim Mellon.
The site will let users publicly submit complaints about companies and encourage businesses to respond to them online.
Firms which fail to respond quickly or address the complaint will be hit with a poor ranking.
MacKenzie, best known for editing The Sun newspaper at its peak in the 1980s, said that more publicity meant more action from companies to improve services.
“As an editor I know the power of publicity to force companies and politicians to do the right thing,” said MacKenzie.
“Now we are putting that power directly into the hands of the man or woman in the street.
“Thanks to social media and web technology we can now really make it work on a big scale.”