We have something like that on az2gnt. There are format rules that have to be followed (kind of like the FSBO forum here). We have them post only the company name for the title, ask them to share some contact info (who they spoke/dealt with, how they got ahold of them), and then only post comments on that vendor within that one thread. (example: there would only be one thread for ERT)

If people knew that the search would find that vendor by that name, they might see the forum more like the yellow pages and look up the vendor to do some research.