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Feedbackhall, an Abuja-based company, has launched Nigeria’s first comprehensive consumers’ opinion website – www.feedbackhall.com. The launch event took place at the Civic Centre in Lagos, on Thursday.

According to Dr Catherine Kanu, CEO of Feedbackhall, the aim of the website is to give consumers the power to drive innovation and change products. The website would encourage consumers to provide feedbacks on products and services, and encourage producers to use the feedbacks to develop user-centred innovative products.

“Feedbackhall believes that these have a mutual relationship,” Kanu said. “Because as consumers share experiences, responsive producers could use the information to improve their products.”

She said entrepreneurs will also benefit from the website by using shared experiences as a guide to develop products. According to the Feedbackhall founder, the platform will also enable consumer protection and regulatory agencies to gain insight into consumer experiences.

The Chairman of the occasion, Pat Utomi, a Professor of Political Economics at the Pan-African University, said the platform would provide an outlet for many disgruntled consumers, who hitherto do not have a place to lay their complaints.

“There is the need for people to be assisted to find their voices,” Utomi said. “In consumer protection, I don’t think that the civil society has done enough, neither has media”

He added that consumer protection needs to be part of activism from the media and other organisations to help those complaining to find their voices.

The Director-General of the Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Babatunde Irukera, while delivering his keynote address, titled "Information as a Tool of Accountability," stated that information is key in the protection of consumers and producers’ rights.

“There is no space abused in our country than the consumer space,” Irukera said. “Full disclosure to consumers is not just the best but the only dimension that would modify content.”

Irukera urged the website owner and CEO of Feedbackhall, Catherine Kanu, not to succumb to any discouragement.

“You are providing a critical interphase that industries may not necessarily be ready to support,” he said.

A representative from the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Mathias Bassey, described the site as an eye-opener. He said the Feedback Unit of SON would partner with Feedbackhall to promote the protection of the rights of consumers and producers, he said.