Gripe Sites: Sue or Stew

Of course, gripe sites hold little entertainment value for those that are the subject of their venom. Everyone, almost everyone, likes to be liked. Businesses depend on it. Their advertising, customer relations, employee training, product development, and sales departments are, almost always, fixated on creating satisfied customers and goodwill. Goodwill is the cornerstone of repeat business and without repeat business, and attendant goodwill, there is, for most, no business.

There might be some tangential value to a gripe site. They do tell a business what some customers think, even though their opinions are not necessarily those that the business wants to hear and certainly not those that it would want other customers or potential customers to hear. They could serve as a warning system to companies that their products or services are not being well-received and that they are suffering from bad word of mouth. But, there are, or should be, many other and better ways to obtain this information. Some alternative routes are through a company's own Web site and toll-free service numbers. Gripe sites also, theoretically, add to the public good as forums for discussion and creating better informed customers.