United Breaks Guitars

Dave Carroll vs. United Airlines

    With over 7 million hits on you tube, Dave Carroll and his music video "United Breaks Guitars" is a prime example of the power of social networking. In my opinion this was the best thing that Carroll could have done. After being bounced around by United and finding no answers he brought his story to the general public. He even warned United before he posted his video, but neither United nor Carroll new the impact his $150 video would have. Carroll's video went viral within five days and to the great surprise of United a simple disgruntled customer became a national problem for them. United watched as their stock dropped $300 million within a week of the video release. Now instead of handling the matter privately they had the entire country watching every move they made.

    In my opinion Dave Carroll followed all the procedures that anyone else in his situation would have done. He was probably polite to an extent and he made no outlandish threats to the company. All Carroll wanted was for United to pay for the damages to his $3,500 guitar, instead United kept him going in circles without any answers. I feel that he appealed to the public because he wasn't angry or mean with his video, but just simply stated what had happened and how he was treated.

    United on the other hand couldn't have handled this any worse. I am sure they get many threats from disgruntled passengers and they could not have known the impact this video would have on them, but not offering anything in exchange for the damage is just simply bad customer service. Once they had realized the impact of Carroll's video however, they still couldn't do the right thing. United tried to buy off Carroll, this didn't help the situation at all. The one thing United did do correctly was to comply with Carroll's wishes and donate the money to a charity; even then United's reputation was below retrieval.

    I think the reason the situation hit national scale in the manner that it did was because everyone has had that bad experience with an airline, but this publicized event was a way people could make the airline held accountable through one person. Dave Carroll was honest and up-front with everything that had happened to him and everything United was doing. United mishandled the entire situation and paid the price for it in their stocks. Carroll made sure to put himself in good light with public by being honest and frank, while United came across as shady and deceiving. The public wants honesty and if United had simply stated what was going on and what they were doing to make it better, the situation for them would have been less harsh.