Why Social Media Matters in Customer Complaint Management

There’s a lot of debate around social networking and the impact it can have on an organization’s customer service reputation. In the high profile area of complaints management, what is it that makes social media an important factor?

This article looks at why business executives need to take social media seriously when considering investment in complaints management.

Gather facts, not anecdotes

Anyone who’s ever been in a conversation with friends or colleagues about any competitive team sport knows how many ‘armchair generals’ there are with all the right answers about fixing performance.

How to manage complaints isn’t far off this situation either. The business leader prioritizing complaints management will have a whole host of advice backed up by examples of ‘a customer complaint’ that backs up their case.

As complaints management can’t be blamed on a referee’s need to visit an optician, it’s important that business leaders resist the draw of isolated examples. In fact, this can divert resource away from tackling the real, systemic problems affecting a greater number of customers.

There’s been a lot of research carried out into complainant behavior which provides some reassurance to help counter the expert with the ‘individual example’. Two areas that I think matter most in the context of the perceived impact of social media are:

1. What are dissatisfied customers likely to do; and
2. Would social media increase the impact of complaints?

What are dissatisfied customers likely to do?

Let’s consider some of the behavioral research which guides us in what our dissatisfied customers are likely to do. First, there are a number of different reasons why a dissatisfied customer may complain. For some, their motivation can include the "societal benefit" of a complaint – i.e. preventing others from undergoing the same service failure.

Richens (1982) identified these personal behavioral factors related to complainant decision making. Solvang’s (2008) identified complainants as having the greatest propensity to engage in negative word of mouth as a course of action.

Will social media increase the impact of complaints?

If we’ve confirmed through research that there’s a risk some customers will tell others, and that helping others for no personal gain is a motivating factor for some, we can see there’s a real risk to be aware of. Now we need to understand if social media is a contributing factor.

In a recent newspaper article, Bachelor (2012) stated that "social media is the way to get an instant complaints response", before she went on to offer hints and tips to readers on how to get social media comments the maximum coverage. She advocates tweeting all your followers and including the company as one effective method, as well as highlighting journalists who follow the company being complained about.

As a journalist, she’s in a good position to know!

However, we also have Andrê et al (2012) publishing research that shows Twitter users themselves rate only 36% of tweets as worth reading. Will your complainants tweet be one of these, or disappear into the electronic blue yonder unnoticed?

This is where managers need to apply some good risk assessment practices to assess the likely impact. Consider the demographics of your customer base, your shareholders and any other parties influencing your business. Do they follow Twitter and will they notice?

However, if mainstream news picks up on a complaint and a twittering journalist makes it a front page news story, how does this affect your business? The individual complainant may now have become a potential public relations hand grenade.

Manage the channel or manage the complaint?

Before leaping to assign funds to a new social media strategy for complaints, consider how your business handles complaints. More significant than the social media aspect of a complaint is (a) whether your organization was fault and (b) what you did, or did not do, about it.

Feinberg et al (1990) showed that it is more likely to be the organization’s response (or lack of) to a failure that causes dissatisfaction. Whether it’s fully social media enabled or not, having a robust, open and easy to access complaints process that responds swiftly and appropriately will make sure you address the underlying issue.

We also know from Davidow (2003) that organizational effectiveness in complaint handling has a significant impact on reducing negative word of mouth. Put simply, how well the organisation handles the complaint can reduce the likelihood of complainants expressing their dissatisfaction publicly.

If you’ve got this right, you may find your tweeting complainant publicizing your exceptional complaint handling. Opinion and information sharing tweets featured as higher scoring categories for readability (Andrê et al, 2012), so the complainant’s tweet about your excellent complaint experience is likely to have some social media influence to balance any negative word of mouth reactions.

[eventPDF]

Managerial action points

How does this discussion help managers in their decision making around social media in complaints management? I have three suggestions:

1. The risk of a dissatisfied customer complaining through social media is very real and cannot be ignored. Negative word of mouth is a known feature of complainant behavior. You can’t dismiss it; so you need to assess the risk and impacts for your business.
2. Before you commit to a social strategy for handling complaints, make sure you’ve fixed the basics first. You need an effective, open, welcoming complaint process that is focused on resolving the problems. Then you can consider how social media features as a channel for open communication.
3. Responding well to complaints has been shown to reduce negative word of mouth. The way you handle the complaint is going to dictate the content of your customer's tweets - as either positive about recovery or adding further weight to their negative word of mouth.

The evidence tells us we can’t ignore social media. But having a great social media strategy without an effective complaint resolution process?

Well, that’s just asking for trouble.

Dr Jason Price is an independent consultant specializing in business change in complex customer service environments in the public and private sector. For more, visit PricePerrott.com

References

• Andrê, P., Bernstein, M.S. & Luther, K., 2012. Who Gives A Tweet? Evaluating Microblog Content Value. CSCW 2012. Seattle, WA, USA, pp. 1–4.
• Bachelor, L., 2012. Complain on Twitter for an instant response. The Guardian, pp.1–3. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk.
• Davidow, M., 2003. Organizational responses to customer complaints: What works and what doesn't. Journal of Service Research, 5(3), p.225.
• Feinberg, R.A. et al., 1990. Myth and reality in customer service: Good and bad service sometimes leads to repurchase. Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behaviour, 3, pp.112–114.
• Richins, M.L., 1982. An Investigation of Consumers' Attitudes Toward Complaining. Advances in Consumer Research, 9, pp.502–556.
• Solvang, B.K., 2008. Customer protest: Exit, voice or negative word of mouth. International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management, 3(1), pp.1–19.