Customer service hell!
Large brands are discovering that their customers won’t put up with shoddy customer service or complaint procedures any more. I suppose to be fair, what they are really discovering is that their customers are now empowered to publish their complaints to a global audience using the internet and the reach of social networking sites and that it may not be in their interest to ignore this phenomenon.
One such interaction was very embarrassing for United Airlines in the US…
A member of the public (Dave Carroll a Canadian singer) had a problem when he flew with United Airlines – he claimed they broke his guitar. He went through a protracted complaints procedure and United Airlines refused to take any responsibility or compensate him… That could have been the end of that, however he decided to voice his discontent and penned a witty song and recorded a very funny video which he posted on youtube…
His song is now a smash hit on youtube with almost 6 Million views and 30,000 comments the airline has serious egg on it’s face and is dealing with a PR disaster. The online community really embraced this complaint and the viral nature of the campaign meant that it spread like wildfire.
Whether this was a one off anomaly or represents United Airlines underlying culture and policies the company now faces a public who believe that as a company United Airlines has very poor customer service. This will be difficult and expensive to change.
In a follow up song Dave tries to take the pressure off Ms Irlwig (the customer service representative) and put the responsibility firmly where it lies on the desk of Unitied Airlines and their policies.
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