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Social media complainers pocket £140m in refunds and gifts

Joanna Faith
Written By:
Joanna Faith
Posted:
Updated:
04/07/2016

Have you got a gripe with a company? Well, it seems it really can pay to complain on Twitter and Facebook.

A new study reveals UK firms have shelled out nearly £140m in refunds and goodwill gifts to social media complainers in the last 12 months.

It found 33% of UK adults have used social media channels to complain about products and services and 27% subsequently received refunds and money off while 15% received a goodwill gift.

However, 42% of UK consumers have also used social media to praise companies, proving that people are just as likely to share their positive experiences as they are their bad ones.

Matt Sanders, head of money at GoCompare, which carried out the research, said: “Many people dislike confrontation and find complaining in person or over the phone quite difficult, even when their consumer rights are being ignored. Whether you’re an expert complainer, or you find it hard to speak out about receiving a poor product or service, using social media is an increasingly common and, for many consumers, successful way of getting your issue resolved.”

He added: “Many larger businesses now have dedicated teams to respond to and deal with negative comments on their social media channels quickly and efficiently, not only to try to get those customers back onside and stop them making further fuss, but to show their other ‘followers’ that if things do go wrong they will deal with it quickly and fairly.”