From Waiting in Line to Lambasting Online
Jilted customers find power, voice on the Web
Betrayal. Disrespect. Indignity.
These are the words that form the vocabulary of wronged customers who avenge perceived corporate mistreatment by launching Internet-based protest movements.
“Customers who create these Web sites frame their grievances to the broader public much like civic protesters,” say researchers James Ward and Amy Ostrom in the Journal of Consumer Research.
In sites that may reach millions of people, wronged customers create “communities of discontent” aimed at particular companies. They go into great detail to tell stories of their anger and mistreatment related to bad service or faulty products. Members of these communities are more likely to characterize these companies in moralistic terms, such as calling them “evil.”
Customers say they typically create these sites to turn their personal betrayal into a worthy cause. A slightly smaller number say they create Internet complaint sites to warn other people about problem companies.
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