South Africans are generally very tolerant people, but when pushed too far by big companies and terrible customer service, well, things happen. One of the latest things is SAAsucks.com, founded by Justin Hartman.

It all started with a typo (on their end, not his), but I get the feeling that this was the final straw, and given the speed at which the rest of the local blogosphere is picking this up, there’s a lot of broken camels out there.

Simple premise - have a problem with SAA? Blog it there. Eventually, they’re going to have to take notice.

This is the other form of public relations, where the consumers get to talk back to the service provider. One of the minor miracles of Web 2.0 - if you have a problem, you can voice it, and people will see it.

Personally, I think the reason big companies get so anal isn’t necessarily always the management’s fault. When a company is new, the founders are directly involved on ground level, and the passion and drive that led to the formation of the business is evident in everything they do.

As it gets bigger, more and more people start coming between the founders and their customers - callcentre operators, sales people, analysts, middle managers, lawyers. The focus of the founders also shifts upward, to massive, strategic decisions. Eventually they’re not connected to their customers (or their ground-level operations) at all.

This is something that social media can change, by connecting the top management directly to their customers on a personal basis - cut through all the internal crap and politics that’s gumming up the machine. And hopefully, things get changed for the better.

Let’s all remember that managers are people too (surprising as that may seem).

If you’d like to submit a story of your own to SAAsucks.com, click here, otherwise, there’s plenty on the site already.