Strategically Communicating

In a Web 2.0 world, customer service complaints now have the potential to reach many more people than they did in the past. A unhappy customer now has the ability to use their social networks to “engage in complaining behaviors to resolve the problems caused by these service failures” (Bach & Kim, 2012). Since a customer’s “word of mouth” now has a much farther reach, companies should pay attention to what their customers are saying about them online. An unhappy web-savvy customer can be a public relations nightmare that can potentially hurt a company’s financial success. Companies should pay attention and monitor what their customers are saying about them online and enlist the support of public relations professionals to fix whatever negative problems or concerns are being said. By monitoring what customers are saying online, it could provide an opportunity to better customer relations or business practices. What happens when a company does not listen to the customer’s online chatter? Shouldn’t the customer always be right?