Ancient Greek prevents shit storms

Claims on Social Media: Apologies alone are not sufficient

 

 

 

The rhetoric principles by Aristotle – stating that Logos (substance) can succeed only together with Pathos (Emotion) and Ethos (morality) – are vivid and valid also for the online-complaint-management of the 21st century. The 3 principles are the most effective way against shit storms because one-dimensional communication is for sure not sufficient. Only  argueing or only apologizing falls short to calm frustrated or angry customers on Social Media.

These are the outcomes of a recent Netherlandish scientific paper. According to the researchers organisations are much better off if they combine various communication strategies: to say sorry AND to express explicitly understanding for the complaint AND to offer proactively solutions, compensations or concrete promises. In doing so organisations can rebuild trust not only with the complainants but also with the by-standers of postings.

Van Mulken/Heslenfled, “Improving Complaint Handling: The Rhetorical Turn in Defensive and Accomodative Strategies”, in: Business and Professional Communications Quarterly, I-22, 2025.

From the practice:

Isn´t that interesting? So often are we the key differences in communication styles of old and young ones, of Digital Natives vs. Baby Boomers, differences between the spoken and the written word, the analogue and the virtual settings or the defensive vs. the accommodative complaint management.

And today it seems that knowledge from 2350 years ago in how we should cope with conflicts constructively still applies. May wordings, ductus or volume of internet communication vary from traditional talking: the principles of interpersonal conduct have not changed. Nice.