只要有服務，就難免有失誤。服務失誤發生之後，適當的補救，能夠提升顧客滿意度，避免顧客流失，且減少顧客抱怨與負面口碑發生的可能。但在某些情況下，服務失誤產生後，最終導致於顧客向新聞媒體進行公開抱怨。藉由新聞媒體的傳播，此一服務失誤將對企業經營造成非常負面的影響。本研究收集205則刊登於蘋果日報的顧客公開抱怨，進行內容分析，分析結果發現，向新聞媒體投訴的主要服務失誤是導因於員工對服務傳送系統的失誤（employee response to service delivery systems failure），佔81.46%，其次則是員工不當行為產生的失誤（unprompted and unsolicited employee action），佔17.56%。而這些向媒體公開抱怨的服務失誤個案，通常伴隨著服務補救的缺乏，或是服務人員於服務失誤後的不當反映態度。由本研究的研究結果可以得知，服務提供者要加強員工訓練，以避免導因於服務人員的服務失誤。而一旦服務失誤發生，適當的補救，以及避免不當的反應態度，是避免該服務失誤被媒體報導之重要關鍵。本研究所獲得之結果，可以作為服務業從業者的參考，也可以作為後續服務失誤公開抱怨的研究基礎。

Service failure is not unusually in service industry. Even the service providers with finest service quality cannot guarantee the inexistence of service failure. Service recovery is an important issue when service failure occurs. With suitable service recovery tactics, service providers may still earn satisfactory from customers, avoid negative word-of-mouths, and keep customer retention even when service failure occurs. However, in some cases, customers choose to complain to the news media. The new media disseminate the story of service failure to the general publics, which would damage the reputation of the service failure providers. To reveal which kind of service failure will be reported to the news media and disseminate to the general publics, the current study collected 205 customers’ complains about service failure from a major newspaper ＂Apple Daily＂ in Taiwan. By content analysis, the current study reveals that the major service failure cases reported in the newspapers could be attributed to employee response to service delivery systems failure (81.46%) and unprompted and unsolicited employee action (17.56%). Almost all of these service failure cases were companied with insufficient service recovery actions and/or inappropriate responses of service attendants. Based on the content analysis results, service providers should increase training of employee and develop standard operation procedure for service failure and recovery. Besides, to avoid customers to report their negative consumption experience to the news media, service providers should ask service attendants not to adopt any inappropriate or emotional responses when receiving customer complains. The content analysis results of the current study can benefit industry practitioners to design appropriate response plan for service failure and recovery. The results of the current study can also be a fundament for future research on the public complains of service failures.