COMPLAINING ON FACEBOOK PAGES AND PROFILES: CONNECTED AND SOCIAL

This study aims to investigate how consumers complain on Facebook pages and profiles. The main objectives are to identify the approaches consumers employ when they complain on Facebook and to determine which Facebook pages... [ view full abstract ]

This study aims to investigate how consumers complain on Facebook pages and profiles. The main objectives are to identify the approaches consumers employ when they complain on Facebook and to determine which Facebook pages (i.e. profiles, company created or user-created pages) they use. Employing netnography as the research design; online observations of 51 Facebook pages that belong to a sample of 13 companies and 545 user profiles were used to collect data. In total, 684 posts with complaints about the company, its products, services, practices, employees and marketing activities were identified. An analysis of these posts showed that when complaining, consumers employ eight approaches: advising the company, comparisons, criticism, entertainment, redress seeking, seeking advice/suggestions, venting and warning others. Among these approaches, venting was found to be the most common approach, followed by criticism. Also, redress seeking had a higher frequency on the official pages which suggested that consumers consider Facebook as a direct communication method with the companies. It is been identified that although consumers use different Facebook sections to complain, their complaints mainly carry similar characteristics and complaining on Facebook is also used as a way to interact and socialise with others.