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Social media (SM) are transforming the ways in which customers communicate with firms following service failures. While there is a positive side to this phenomenon, there is also a negative side, which can lead to serious social media crises. In light of this duality, the current article addresses the good, the bad, and the ugly uses of SM in the customer complaining process. Herein, we identify six different types of SM complaining situations. The good represent opportunities: (1) when customers complain to the company online immediately after a first-service failure, or (2) when consumers publicize extraordinary recoveries. The bad involve risks: (3) when customers discuss a failure without complaining to the firm, or (4) when consumers reach out to online third-party complaint intercessors. The truly ugly represent the peak of online threats and public crises: (5) when customers spread negative publicity through user-generated content SM following a double deviation, or (6) when competitors respond to this content to steal customers. As a takeaway for managers, we formulate specific recommendations to deal with each type of online complaining.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. After finding his guitar badly damaged by United Air Lines' baggage handling, and after enduring nine months of fruitless attempts to secure restitution from the company, an exhausted customer retaliated by posting a YouTube video about his misadventure. A year later, the video has become viral and generated more than 9 million hits. This musician's course of action is but one example of a bona fide movement, and not only is online public complaining becoming more prevalent, but this form of customer response could also be very costly for companies. So what can companies do to deal with online complainers? Based on their eight years of research, the authors summarize their understanding of this phenomenon and provide actionable recommendations. They organize their conclusions into a two-by-two matrix. First, the matrix's rows differentiate between (1) understanding complainers' motives and behaviors and (2) recommendations whereby offending companies may change those behaviors. Second, the matrix's columns distinguish between the before and after of the online complaints, as motives and behaviors change over time. The authors' recommendations highlight how companies can prevent, or at least reduce, online complaining, and how companies should respond after an online complaint happens anyway. In particular, they show that the best way to avoid the triggers of online complaining is to develop fair processes and a triage system for initial non-online complaints. Also, they show that companies should respond to online complaints as quickly as possible-in any case, no later than four weeks after the online complaint posting-and that the nature of the apology should depend on the type of customer involved.