Conflict on Social Media Facebook as a neutral platform for company-consumer conflict resolution

Abstract

Social media, particularly Facebook, has become a favourable environment for online commerce. This tool provides ease of purchase and quick and direct interaction with companies, but there is a hazardous side effect that can be fatal to the smooth running of the relationship between companies and consumers. Complaints on social networks reach a significant number of followers, making the platform a conflictsensitive environment. The purpose of this thesis is to explore whether there are indeed healthy conditions for conflict resolution available in this social media through quantitative research, where we analyse how companies use this tool to increase their portfolio, but how fragile are negative consumer manifestations through their pages. The quantitative evidence indicates as a result that companies have clear gains in marketing, but still need to manage complaints from users who externalize their dissatisfaction without prior filtering of the social network itself, which facilitates a monopoly of reason, since This platform does not have conflict mediation tools, contributing to this digital environment not saw as democratic and neutral by all parties. Thus, this thesis has as its central intuition to understand human behaviour, consumer relations and brand disclosure and how this social media can be used as a failed tool as a customer service mechanism, since there is no absolute level of control for possible dissatisfaction, handling and conflict management in advance.