Everyone has a voice on social media. People on social media feel like “mini celebrities” as they are aware that their actions and activities online are being closely followed. This catalyses confidence behind the screen of which many hide.
Years ago, your complaint would only be noticed if you were public media. Now, if a consumer is dissatisfied with something, they now use social media as an outlet to complain and vent their frustration. Offline or online, negativity spreads like wildfire. Social media has leveled the playing field.
In 2008, Public Relations Journal conducted a study which discovered that the instantaneous nature of social media and blogs “forced organizations to respond more quickly to criticism.”
The response that the organisation chooses to execute decides if the complaint may damage their reputation or strengthen it. The Justine Sacco case clearly demonstrates how ignorance on social media may snowball and lead to devastating consequences. Organisations are also pressured to increase the speed of their response. Research from Mauritz and Evolve24 state that of 1,298 Twitter complainants found, only 29% of them were replied to by the organisations at fault. However, 83% of the complainants that received a reply liked or loved the fact that the company responded.
The longer companies take to come up with a solution, the more they cannot be up to speed of which the negativity is spreading, the worse their reputation would deteriorate.
Jet Blue is an example that does not let criticism grow out of hand by “instantly addressing customer service issues and resolving them”. They express how important it is to nip problems in the bud, as they are easier to sort out the earlier they are addressed. With social media, you can tackle the situation in real-time, and change the possible impression and outcome resultant from a problem.
However, the ending isn’t always this nice. Hasan Syed demonstrated how social media can greatly affect a company, by paying $1,000 to promote his tweet, multiplying the visibility of his complaint. British Airways only responded after 8 hours, at which point the damage had already been done.
There is a fine line between spreading hate and negativity about a company, and trying to get your complaints addressed. Customers need to know their limits, whether they are just trying to promote themselves by bringing the company down or to truly bring across a loophole in the organisation’s system.
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References:
How To Use Social Media to Make Complaints by The Savings Experiment
Resolving Consumer Complaints Through Social Media
How Can Brands Turn Consumer Complaints Into Compliments On Social Media?
4 Examples of Excellent Twitter Customer Service
70% of Companies Ignore Customer Complaints on Twitter
Examples of the Good, Bad and Ugly of Customer Service on Social Media
Living & Working on the Web 
Hi Nicole!
I think you are addressing a very important aspect of Social Media Ethics as it is indeed a pressing concern that with the power consumers can have on these platforms, they may be abusing it and cause negative impacts on businesses. However, I personally think that the catalyst to this behaviour is not solely due to the awareness of being watched, but it’s because they are so sure they CAN be heard, and that they have the power to be heard.
Like you’ve said, years ago our complaints can only be heard through a public media platform but with the invention of social media and advancement of technology, most of us own a smartphone and access to social media – a universal communication device in the heart of our palm.
With this power in our hands, I fully agree with your conclusion that we should not step over the line to spread hate and negativity, but instead use it constructively to build an effective communication medium, where all our voices can be heard.
I definitely had take-aways from your post, it was a good read. Thank you!
Cheers,
Sze Li
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Hi Nicole, it’s me again!
It has never crossed my mind how social media harms organizations from the customers’ acts. I think that it is very important that everyone should know about it, regardless of their roles as employers, employees, competitors, or customers. This would be especially important to marketers or PR of every organization.
There are a few questions which i wish to clarify with you. Despite having such low response rates to complainants, does it show that the companies do not have the proper PR measures, or could it be that they are not paying sufficient attention to their social media page?
I wouldn’t agree that it is solely the complainants’ at fault for raging on their pages in cases like companies not replying within 5 business days. I agree that we should not put the blame on social media but instead on the users.
Hope to hear from you soon!
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Hi Nic,
My impression that that many companies my have experience, knowledge and methods of conducting great PR, but are not as experienced in the field of social media. PR and Social Media are similar but they still have their differences! For example, Jet Blue established a team just to tackle social media complaints. This shows the amount of focus needed to be executed by an organisation. However, Social Media can still be leveraged for PR success and to build rapport with customers. 🙂
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