Lessons we can learn from United Breaks Guitars
Until earlier this week I had never heard of Dave Carroll, but this weekend as I was working in the yard I found myself continually humming the refrain from his phenomenal Internet video United Breaks Guitars. It’s a catchy tune packed with a devastating blow to the image of United Airlines. If you haven’t read the story, take a moment from this blog and read the “detailed version” of what happened to Dave and his band Sons of Maxwell. Then watch the video.
Story: http://tinyurl.com/l74j68
Video: http://tinyurl.com/knxyvm
As I write this, the video which was posted on July 6th a mere 13 days ago is rapidly approaching 3.5 MILLION views and has a rating of 5 stars with almost 25,000 people giving their thumbs up. Obviously Dave hit a nerve. It could have been any airport and any airline, but in the musical chairs of airline travel when the music stopped it was United in Chicago and the indifference of the employees from that day until a year later that sparked the will and creativity of what we now know as the story (and video) of United Breaks Guitars.
So for those of us in business, what can we learn at United’s expense?
We now live in a new connected world where social media and one individual can bring a story of ultimate customer indifference to many, and in the process reverse the efforts of millions of dollars of brand promotion and positioning.
We also see that this could all have been avoided if someone somewhere in the United organization would have just stepped forward and taken some responsibility for making things right. It would have been so easy to do.
United Breaks Guitars is a wake up call to big corporate America and small business America and everyone in between that the customer ultimately is the boss. The customer writes your paycheck and in the end the customer can vote with their feet and in this case probably influence a lot of other feet as well. Dave says that he intends to make two more videos to complete a trilogy, and then we all get to vote for the best. I’m looking forward to the next installment and in the meantime I hope we can all learn a lesson or two from the story of United Breaks Guitars.
Scott,
You have hit the nail on the head. Poor customer service can come back to bite you hard in the age of instant and easy communication. Used to be an upset customer would tell his or her friends. So maybe 5 to 50 people would hear about it. Now it can be millions!
I believe I’ll remind our staff again tomorrow, just how important it is we keep our customer’s happy and treat them the way we want to be treated….
Thanks for the reminder!