Brilliant app by NJ creator helps businesses be better without nasty reviews

Online reviews can be a blessing or a curse for a business. A thousand five-star reviews can make them, or one or two terrible ones can break them.

That’s because we humans are cynical by nature when it comes to our money. We may assume the worst in businesses, that they’re always out to get you, that everything is overpriced, etc.

So, despite how many great reviews we see, when we read even a few bad ones we have that “aha!” moment that justifies our cynical, paranoid nature.

The dilemma: Give feedback or stay silent?

But what if you legitimately wanted to let a company know they could do better but weren’t out to really destroy them? Other than asking to speak to a manager, which can come off as a Karen-like confrontation, up until now, you’ve basically had either things like online reviews for the whole world to see or keeping your mouth shut.

A New Jersey guy has come up with a brilliant in-between.

Meet Twocents, the app for private feedback

It’s an app called Twocents. It’s the creation of a New Jersey guy, Drew Weaver. He toyed with an idea for years about a way to get constructive criticism to local businesses without destroying their reputations. It solidified after a lunch experience with his wife at a Montclair restaurant.

“It was too much for us. It was very loud, and there was no sound absorption at all, so we couldn’t hear each other talk,” he told NJ Monthly . “And the lighting was so bright.”

He says he’s not the type to shame a business online and punish them. So he came up with an app that lets people leave the equivalent of an online review but it only goes to the local business without destroying their reputation.

From Montclair to all of New Jersey

It started out with restaurants in their town of Montclair and quickly expanded to include non-food types of businesses as well. Now Twocents is going statewide.

Twocents gives businesses an opportunity to address customers’ concerns privately, and customers using the app earn rewards, such as restaurant gift cards. It’s a win-win.

Weaver says Twocents elicits up to four times the feedback volume that businesses get from Google and Yelp combined. You can download the Twocents app on Google Play and the Apple App Store.