People want to be heard, they want a human being to say “I’m sorry that happened, let’s see what we can do to make it right.” They will let their friends know how they were treated – because they can.

If not heard and helped they will react. I the old days may bee tell approximately 8-10 friends about it – nowadays they will tell the “whole world about it”.

What went wrong for Time Warner?

• Time Warner Cable Sucks has 761 Facebook members
• Boycott Time Warner has 123 Facebook members
• Time Warner Sucks has 244 Facebook members

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And the customers use the status – “What is on your mind?” – to tell their connections about their experience – below a Vodafone customer from Germany:

And a customer from Germany that complains – on Twitter – about the quality of a TV from Philips that MediaMarkt has on sale for 499 EURO:

The same customer complaining about pure battery life-time on new Palm:

And on his blog:



According to a study by Society for New Communications Research 59% of respondents said they regularly use social media to “vent” about a poor customer service experience. Other key findings where:

•    72% of respondents research companies’ customer care online prior to purchasing products and services at least sometimes
•    84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care at least sometimes in their decision to do business with a company
•    74% choose companies/brands based on others’ customer care experiences shared online
•    84% of respondents consider the quality of customer care in their decision to do business with a company at least sometimes

May bee social networking will serve as the quality assessment for almost every business or service.

Related posts:

1. Chasing complaining customers on social media?
2. Customers aren’t just simply customers, they’re influencers
3. Are negative reviews on social media expensive?
4. Collecting unhappy Deutsche Bahn customers from Twitter
5. What happens if companies don’t listen to their customers?