Online Customer Complaints and Defamation

• Customer dissatisfaction occurs when a customer believes that their expectations are not met by the organisation, resulting in a service failure. Some customers' response to this is to ignore it, others seek to communicate this to the organisation,while others engage in negative word-of-mouth (WOM) or revenge behaviour. These responses may also occur using digital media. When engaging in WOM or revenge behaviours, defamation may come about, either intentionally or through negligence. The purpose of the study was to examine a number of online complaints on a third-party website, made concerning a motor manufacturer to determine whether they amounted to defamation. Analysis of twenty-nine comments indicated that while the majority could not be regarded as defamatory, fivecontained elements of defamation. This is an area of law that must still develop in line with the demands of technology in the South African society

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Defamation; online complaints; customer complaints; Internet

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)