Internet Marketing Blog by Noon-an-Night

“Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000″
-Pete Blackshaw

Two recent stories that I’ve come across show that most people simply don’t understand that the above title of Blackshaw’s upcoming book is not an exaggeration. In fact, in many cases, it’s an extreme understatement.

The first story is about a Circuit City customer who purchased a $3,000 audio system. However, because of the terrible job Circuit City did with the installation, the customer ended up forking over $12,000 in repairs after Honda declared his car a fire hazard.

After Circuit City refused to compensate him for anything other than the cost of the stereo, this customer posted his story (complete with pictures and a YouTube video) in a car enthusiast forum. Since then, the story has been featured on the Consumerist, received over 3,400 Diggs and made it onto the 145th episode of DiggNation. Recent estimates indicate that this story has been viewed by over 400,000 people.

While less concrete than the first example, the second story shows how quickly average people use the internet to express their frustrations with companies that don’t live up to their expectations.

A post from the Hitwise blog analyzed where people went after visiting the American Airlines website during their massive canceling of thousands of flights.

While the analyst expected an increase in traffic to other airline websites to look for alternate flights, her hunch turned out to be incorrect.

In fact, the data showed a “12% decrease in downstream visits from AA.com to Travel websites, we saw a 19% increase in visits to News and Media websites, 13% increase to Email Services and a 74% in visits to Social Networking and Forums.”

While it’s impossible to analyze exactly what all of these visitors were doing on social networks and forums were doing after visiting AA.com, one thing is for sure: they weren’t talking about how much they love American Airlines.

(134,000 results for american airlines sucks)