NEW YORK, U.S.A. – Customers have always been fickle, but never before has it been so easy for them to channel discontent into social-media campaigns with potentially disastrous consequences for companies. In The Conference Board Review cover story, “Anger Management,” writer John Buchanan explores how technology has helped spur “a massive power shift,” emboldening consumers to express their outrage. Still, counsels Buchanan, there’s plenty that organizations can do to keep their customers from turning on them.

“The kind of business move that used to generate mild grumbling and then grudging acceptance,” writes Buchanan, “now brings immediate denunciations, viral social-media protests, front-page headlines, and the worst fate of all: being made an example of.” Buchanan points out three companies – Netflix, Verizon, and Bank of America – which recently suffered the wrath of unhappy customers. He illustrates how and why changes in policy quickly snowballed into major PR debacles for these organizations.

It’s not just bad management decisions that can spark massive consumer revolts. It’s often a lack of empathy, explains Buchanan. While this is hardly a novel complaint, what’s different now is the ability of consumers to connect through social media, create a firestorm, and force companies to take notice and, many times, alter policy. What might begin with one dissatisfied tweet can quickly turn into an avalanche of negative publicity for an organization.

“Companies have to realize that the business environment has changed,” Buchanan writes. “But they haven’t yet. And they haven’t realized how intense the consumer anger is.” By doing a better job of listening to their consumers, businesses might be able to avoid backlashes.

For example, executives should interact more with customers, online and in the field. And companies should engage their PR departments more when making decisions that will impact consumers. Unfortunately, Buchanan points out that market research is “a discipline that has been devalued at a time when managers wrongly believe that they can grasp customer sentiments by having a summer intern monitor tweets and Facebook posts about the company’s brands.”

At the same time, it’s not only consumers that are scrutinizing and reacting to marketing decisions. Increasingly, boards are second-guessing management and judging leaders by how well they cater to and respond to customer demands. Ultimately, the message is clear: Pay attention to your customers.

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Back in January of 2009 2 million tweets were sent per day and in 2010 the figure skyrocketed to 65 million tweets.  But these numbers are miniscule in comparison to the roughly 200 million tweets sent presently each day.

In a recent online post from Twitter, the company explains that each day “the world writes the equivalent of a 10 million-page book in tweets” (Rolling Stone).  On top of this, the company places the magnitude of the latest tweet figure into more perspective, stating that reading through that mass of “text would take more than 31 years” (Rolling Stone).

There appears to be a growing appeal for postings that are shorter than ever in word count, with a total of a billion tweets sent every five days.  The tweets are 25 words on average and popular topics of early 2011 range from pop culture, such as Britney Spears’ latest album Femme Fatale, to health-related news such as AH1N1 Swine Flu.

With the current 200 million tweet statistic, Twitter has proven to be a revolutionary means for people to communicate or rather tweet about the news the world brings us each day.

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