The Internet provides a platform for people online to voice their customer experiences – both the good and the bad. When a customer lashes out at a company or brand, their displeasure is voiced for the whole world to see. In this week’s Friday Fact Box we look at some interesting stats on the brands and industries with the highest number of customer complaints and three complaint aggregators that are being used as platforms.

From emarketer.com: Consumers free to speak their mind online (November 2009)

• 20% of Internet users have lashed out online about a company or brand
• 24.4% of men have lashed out about or at companies or their brands in comparison to 15.8% of women

From Webliquid: 2010 Customer Complaint Index (February 2010)

Two of the key slides on this presentation show brands with the highest number of customer complaints, and the percentage share of customer complaints across the industries.

There are a number of complaint aggregators for customers to voice their opinion on a company or brand.  These platforms help protect consumer rights and some offer companies and brands a forum for redress.

Three such platforms of note are Get Satisfaction, Complaints.com and Pissedconsumer.com. Below is a comparison of the unique visitors to these sites from July 2009 to June 2010.

Image Credit: compete

From compete.com: Monthly normalised metrics (June 2010)

• Get Satisfaction experienced an increase of 107.48% from July 2009 to June 2010.
• There were 1,650, 833 visits in June 2010 (1,058,843 were unique visitors).
• Complaints.com had a decrease in visits by -26.4% from July 2009 to June 2010.
• There were 271,508 visits in June 2010 (260,980 were unique visitors).
• Pissedconsumer.com had an increase in visitors to the site by 202.35% from July 2009 to June 2010.
• There were 665,804 visitors to the site in June 2010 (590,406 were unique visitors).

As more customers are airing their experiences and opinions online, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to monitor their reputations online and respond accordingly in order to avoid a situation which could do damage to the brand.

Also check out:

• The Power of Word of Mouth
• Tim Barker on Technology and Retaining Cliernts