Just Plane Stupid: When Poor Customer Service Goes Viral

Most unhappy customers don't write songs about you.

That's fortunate.

Because Canadian musician Dave Carroll did—and his experience became one of the best examples I've ever seen of how a relatively small customer-service problem can turn into something much, much bigger.

It Started With a Broken Guitar

In 2008, Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell, were flying United Airlines to Nebraska for a week-long tour.

During a connection in Chicago, passengers noticed baggage handlers outside throwing the band's guitars.

Carroll later discovered that his $3,500 Taylor guitar had been badly damaged.

At this point, United didn't really have a major public-relations problem.

It had one damaged guitar and one unhappy customer.

That's an important distinction.

Then Came the Real Problem

Carroll tried to get the matter resolved.

And tried.

And tried.

For months he dealt with different people and different parts of the airline trying to obtain compensation for the damage.

Eventually, United said no.

So Carroll decided to use something he understood very well.

Music.

He told United he was going to write three songs about his experience, create videos for them and put them online for the world to see.

The first was called:

United Breaks Guitars

Carroll hoped the video might receive one million views in a year.

It reached that number in just a few days.

The complaint that had once existed between one musician and one airline suddenly had an enormous audience.

The story was picked up by the media, shared around the world and became a case study in how not to handle customer service.

And that's where I think the story becomes particularly interesting for any business.

Most Unhappy Customers Simply Disappear

If someone receives poor service from your business, there's a good chance you'll never know the true cost.

They may complain.

But many won't.

They simply don't come back.

Then perhaps they tell their spouse.

A friend.

Someone at work.

That person tells someone else.

I've always thought of this as the Christmas tree effect.

One bad experience starts at the top and gradually branches outward.

The business may see the original complaint.

But What Happens When the "Wrong" Person Is Watching?

Dave Carroll wasn't just another passenger with damaged luggage.

He was a songwriter.

He knew how to tell a story.

He knew how to make it entertaining.

And he had something unhappy customers didn't possess a generation earlier:

his own worldwide broadcasting system—the internet.

The remarkable thing is that Carroll didn't need millions of followers.

Other people spread the complaint for him because the video was entertaining and the story resonated with them.

The Cheapest Complaint May Be the One You Solve Early

Mistakes happen.

Products fail.

Orders get mixed up.

Employees have bad days.

Customers sometimes have legitimate complaints.

The mistake itself doesn't necessarily determine how a customer ultimately feels about your business.

What happens next does.

That's why every business should know:

• Who receives complaints?
• Who is responsible for resolving them?
• How quickly does somebody respond?
• Are employees empowered to make reasonable decisions?
• And does anyone follow up to make sure the problem was actually solved?

Passing an unhappy customer from one person to another doesn't make the complaint disappear.

Usually it does the opposite.

It gives the customer another reason to be unhappy.

The Internet Has a Very Long Memory

United eventually contacted Carroll after the video became a worldwide story.

But by then, something fundamental had changed.

United no longer controlled the complaint.

The internet did.

The guitar was damaged in 2008.

Yet here I am writing about it many years later.

You're reading about it.

And somebody who has never heard the story before may watch the video embedded on this page and discover United Breaks Guitars for the first time.

That's an extraordinarily long life for one customer complaint.

But there's another part of this story that businesses can never measure.

Years Later, United Lost My Business

Some time ago, I was arranging a business trip.

When I looked at the available flights, I had a choice between United Airlines and another carrier.

I automatically chose the other airline.

I didn't conduct an investigation into United's customer-service record.

I didn't compare complaint statistics.

I didn't even consciously sit there thinking about Dave Carroll and his guitar.

I simply preferred the other airline.

But I knew why.

Somewhere in the back of my mind was United Breaks Guitars.

Think about that for a moment.

United had never broken my guitar.

They hadn't lost my luggage.

I'd never filed a complaint against them.

I'd never personally had the experience Dave Carroll had.

United lost a customer.

And they had absolutely no way of knowing why.

• No complaint from me.
• No angry email.
• No bad review.
• No social-media post.

I simply gave my money to somebody else.

That's the Part You Can't Measure

A business can count complaints.

• It can monitor online reviews.
• It can count refunds.
• It can measure customer-service calls.

What it can't measure easily are all the people who quietly decide not to buy because of something they've heard from somebody else.

That's the Christmas tree effect.

The original unhappy customer is only the top of the tree.

The branches can extend much further than anyone realizes.

And occasionally, as United discovered, the "wrong" customer happens to have the ability to grow an extremely large tree.

Find the Problem Before the Tree Starts Growing

The lesson from United Breaks Guitars isn't that every unhappy customer will create a viral video.

Almost none will.

It's that you don't know how far a customer's experience will travel.

So:

• Take reasonable complaints seriously.
• Fix problems quickly.
• Give employees the ability to help.
• Follow up.

And don't look at the cost of resolving a complaint simply as money going out of the business.

Because the customer standing in front of you isn't necessarily the only customer you're dealing with.

• Their friends may be watching.
• Their family may be watching.
• Their colleagues may be watching.
• And occasionally, millions of complete strangers may be watching too.

…And that's my Two Pence Worth.