There were heated scenes online yesterday as arguments broke out over the poor quality of a Pizza that a customer received and shared the results of the Pizza online.

Businesses do make mistakes time to time, most mistakes are rectified by the staff after a quiet word or two with them but sometimes staff or the customer can get defensive or angry, tempers rise and things happen that people will regret later on.

So what happens if there is a bad experience? Do people keep the experience to themselves and shop elsewhere? Do they privately tell friends or do they go on the thumbs up/thumbs down groups and show the world what they experienced?

There may not be a right answer, keeping it to yourself means you know what to and what not to buy but it keeps everyone else out of your observations, privately telling friends about your experience keeps them informed but you got to hope a friend doesn’t have a friend at the business for they may tell the person and upset them and the last one can inform the masses yet upset many even if it is the truth.

A further complication is that some FB groups do have fake accounts and people with personal agendas and they could push things wildly out of control which leads to fights and the deletion of a topic that at first was totally legitimate.

The best thing to do is to talk directly to the manager of the business, they usually get things sorted out and they never seem to forget to make you happy the next time you shop.

The worst thing to do is to post in the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down group about a bad experience, a golden rule there is not to criticize local businesses and if you take your chances, it is almost certain that you will be ‘slammed’ and then a lot of pro-business posts will be made to counter your post.

Knowledge is power but always remember a line from a Cher song ‘Words are like weapons, they wound sometimes’ when it comes to speaking out verbally or in text.