Over the last several years, it’s become increasingly common for consumers to share their negative experiences with brands on social media. According to the 2020 National Consumer Rage Study, the number of customers who prefer to vent their grievances via digital platforms rather than by phone or in-person has tripled in the last three years, and 48% of American consumers rely on social media to gauge other people’s experiences with a company’s products and services. This represents a major shift from traditional, more private mechanisms for fielding customer complaints, creating both challenges and opportunities for brands looking to engage with their customers.
Why You Shouldn’t Engage with Customer Complaints on Twitter
What do you do when a customer tweets something negative about your company? Many businesses have pursued a strategy of proactive, public engagement — and this certainly seems like a good idea. But despite the advantages of demonstrating that your brand cares about its customers, new research suggests that publicly responding to customer complaints can actually have a significant negative effect. Specifically, when companies responded publicly to negative tweets, researchers found that those companies experienced a drop in stock price and a reduction in brand image. That’s because engaging with these unhappy customers actually attracts more attention to their complaints, turning brands’ social media pages into an area of negativity that drowns out their own (more positive) content. To address this, the authors suggest that companies should respond to complaints with a single message directing customers to a private communication channel, and should also endeavor to limit the visibility of these conversations by pinning their own posts to the top of their social media platforms.