I started using local guides as a way of scoring places for how good or bad they were:
-Restaurants
-Discos
-Academies
-Others
As you may see, my original idea was to give feedback to other users on how good a certain company was on giving service or products to their customers and the quality of those.
There is a special reason on using Local Guides this way: I personally believe in my country (Uruguay), companies don’t really care tomake their customers happy and maintain them that way, specially big companies. I growed sick of all customers having to accept beforehand that the service or product that they were going to receive wasn’t going to be perfect. And even hoping that it’s flaw would be tolerable so as not to have to go post a reclaim (which of course, wouldn’t have the proper attention).
As a Software Engineer I wanted to build a mobile application that would allow my countrymen to give and receive feedback on different companies here on Uruguay, so as to avoid bad places, and encourage good ones. That sort of social pressure would, hopefully, force bad companies to improve their behaviour.
I never found the time to build it, so in the meantime I relied on Local Guides to substitute my application, and a way of having these companies know my disappointment with them.
Thing is, when I started organizing a trip on Uruguay for myself I decided to use what I’ve learnt on Local Guides to properly prepare it. It was a success!
I managed to get places to visit, where to sleep, where to eat, and many things more without having to ask anybody, just on Google Maps information and Local Guides.
So this is what Local Guides mean to me: information from common people on common issues of our common lives, that you may not find so easily on other sources. Also, as a way to let other people know how you feel about some place they want to visit, or even the way around.
Regards!