Customer complaints can be crucial to a company's bottom line as they represent a rupture in the customer's relationship with the company, a crisis of trust and communication. Companies that handle complaints and service recoveries well can mend this relational rupture by doing so and increase customer loyalty as a result. Companies that do not, typically fail at one of two points:

1. They miss the opportunity to engage the complaining customer in a dialogue.

2. They engage the complaining customer in a dialogue but fail in the service recovery.

Many companies already rely on CRM solutions to identify customer complaints on social media platforms. However, merely identifying such customers is largely ineffective unless the CRM strategies in question have the explicit goal of actually engaging these customers in a dialogue. In order to leverage customer complaints on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, companies' CRM
strategies should consider the following guidelines.


1. Invite complaining customers to a private dialogue: Since social media platforms are public, it is vital that any dialogue about complaints take place away from the social media platform in question. Therefore, companies should respond to complaining customers by inviting them to discuss their complaints in private.

2. Treat slams against the company as complaints: Many customers prefer to vent their emotions rather than complain – for example - by Tweeting colorful versions of "your company sucks!" By responding to such slams in a public forum and offering to engage the irate customer in a dialogue, companies have the chance to salvage the customer and to preserve their public image by appearing responsive, caring and communicative. Getting a response from a company when they least expect one will make irate customer at least slightly less irate, and by doing so, reduce negative word of mouth and negative word of mouse.


3. Treat customer complaints as 'cries for help': All squeaky wheels need grease and when a complaining customer is concerned, only the company can give it to them. Giving complaining and irate customers the chance to discuss their complaint in further detail and 'get the grease' by doing so allows them to dialogue with the company and resolve their problem.

4. Provide live representatives: Complaining customers have a low frustration threshold. Making it difficult for them to reach a live person will only make them angrier. Therefore, when contacting customers through social media platforms and inviting them to a dialogue, companies must provide easy and immediate access to a live representative.

5. Acknowledge the customer has a problem: When responding to customers on social media platforms, companies must first acknowledge the customer has experienced a problem and only then invite them to contact the company. Doing so will make the customer far more likely to respond as they will have experienced emotional validation-a hugely important component of complaint handling and
complaining psychology. For example, Tweet "We're sorry to hear! Please contact a CSR (give contact info) so we can help."

In short, in order to use CRM solutions to leverage customer complaints from the ever-growing number of social media channels available to consumers, companies must utilize complaining psychology to engage both complaining and irate customers in a dialogue. Such discussions should take place on private channels by providing direct access to live representatives.


Companies that respond correctly when customers use social media to complain will make the company appear communicative and caring by doing so as well as reduce negative word of mouth and negative word of mouse. Further, they will then have the opportunity to perform service recoveries to reduce customer attrition and increase customer loyalty.

Guy Winch PhD, author of THE SQUEAKY WHEEL: Complaining the Right Way to Get Results (Walker & Co; 2011),http://www.guywinch.comTwitter: @GuyWinch