Other Users

Guest complaints are inevitable due to the high level of human involvement in the hospitality business (Kim, Kim, & Kim, 2009). Traditionally, a complaint takes place in a dyadic manner in which the complainer communicates his/her grievance to the company, a third party, friends or relatives (e.g., Day & Landon, 1977). However, this dyadic communication environment for customer complaints is fading out due to the advent of social media websites. It has been reported that about two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit social network or blogging sites (Anonymous, 2009). Online community has been even linked to the individual identification as a social proxy (Brown, Broderick, & Lee, 2007). The prevalence of social media websites provides new platforms for customers in the hospitality industry to voice their negative experiences. The traditional dyadic dialog between the company and the customer is shifting to a triadic communication network that involves the complainer (actor), the company and other website users (observers) (Figure 1). This new communication platform brings more complexity to the complaint process. First, a complaint is exposed to both the company and other website users (Lee & Lee, 2006). Second, the company’s responses toward the complaint are also accessible to both the complainer and other website users