The customer is always right

Abstract: “The customer is always right”: A qualitative study of how service-providing companies deal with public customer complaints filed on social network sites. Customers have always voiced their complaints, but with the emergence of the Internet and the rise of social media, the medium they used to do so has changed. While beforehand, customers contacted companies through letters or phone calls, nowadays they have the opportunity to raise their voices online and share their dissatisfactions not only with the organisation involved but with their entire network. Therefore, this thesis investigates how service organisations deal with customer complaints filed on social network sites. The focus of this essay was put on the public aspect of social media and how companies handle potential imagethreatening posts. This research project was done by observing and interviewing the social media teams of three Belgian service companies. Additionally, the researcher scanned the companies’ online activity.