Firms are increasingly turning to social media platforms for complaint handling. Past research and practitioners’ reports highlight the benefits of complaint handling on social media, urging firms to provide prompt and detailed responses to complaints. However, little research has explored the possible drawbacks of such practices, especially when responses inadvertently further publicize complaints. Utilizing two unique data sets in a series of observational and quasi-experimental analyses, this research provides the first evidence of complaint publicization in social media, a phenomenon in which firm responses to complaints on popular social media platforms increase the potential public exposure of complaints. This negative effect can outweigh any positive customer care-signaling impact from firm responses. The authors show that a response strategy that engenders a high level of complaint publicization – e.g., providing detailed responses through multiple communication exchanges with a complainant – could negatively impact perceived quality and firm value, diminish the positive impact of a firm’s own posts, and increase the volume of future complaints. Additional analyses reveal that these adverse impacts are stronger for firms that are targeted by retail investors. The authors also uncover specific response strategies and styles that could mitigate these effects.

公司越来越多地转向社交媒体平台来处理投诉。过去的研究和从业人员的报告强调了在社交媒体上处理投诉的好处，敦促公司对投诉提供及时详细的答复。但是，很少有研究探讨这种做法的可能弊端，尤其是当答复无意中进一步宣传了投诉时。该研究在一系列观察和准实验分析中利用两个独特的数据集，为投诉宣传提供了第一个证据。在社交媒体中，一种现象，即在流行的社交媒体平台上对投诉的坚定响应会增加潜在的公众投诉曝光率。这种负面影响可能超过公司响应带来的任何积极的客户服务信号传递影响。作者表明，引起高水平投诉宣传的响应策略（例如，通过与投诉人的多次交流交流提供详细的响应）可能会对感知的质量和公司价值产生负面影响，减少公司自身职位的积极影响，并增加未来的投诉量。进一步的分析表明，这些不利影响对于以散户投资者为目标的公司更为强大。作者还发现了可以减轻这些影响的具体应对策略和方式。