When it comes to evaluating corporate blogging as a tool for customer acquisition and retention, support for reader comments brings about anxiety in some business decisions makers.

They dread the thought of a dissatisfied customer using the feature to leave unflattering remarks about the organization.  Some have gone so far as to ask whether we can set up a blog network that does not accept comment submissions at all.

Several of us at Compendium have written on the topic, making the case that comments should be embraced, rather than feared.  A quick sift through the posts turned up the following list:
If you are one of those commentophobic business leaders who hasn't been swayed by our posts, perhaps an independent voice can help to close the deal.  Yesterday, eWeek ran a story, written by Nathan Eddy, titled "Six Tips to Build Your Brand".  Tip 3 talks about using social media to get comments directly from your customers.  Quoting an excerpt from that story, which cites What's Next Blog author BL Ochman:
And no matter how you cultivate feedback, Ochman says it’s absolutely critical, even if the feedback is negative. “Companies are afraid: What if they say something bad?” she says. “You should be so lucky that someone tells you what they don’t like, because most of the time they walk out the door and they never come back.”
When you have a chance to directly engage your customers, you have a chance to win people over, even those you might be on the verge of losing.