Right Side of Right

By Gregory Karp
A Canadian songwriter who became famous for slamming United Airlines in a cleverYouTube music video that went viral, has helped start an online complaint website this week. (more…)

Dave Carroll Music / Big Break Enterprises have submitted an entry to the Forrester Groundswell Awards, in the Social Impact category. You can find Dave’s entry about how he created a viral music video trilogy (United Breaks Guitars) and website Right Side of Right, empowering frustrated passengers & frustrated consumers around the world, along with the other entries by visiting the Groundswell site. The first United Breaks Guitars music video cost approximately $150 to make. The trilogy has been viewed on YouTube by more than 10 million people and over 100 million people have learned of Dave’s story & creative response via social media & traditional media channels. It was estimated that the first United Breaks Guitars video cost United Airlines over $180 million dollars.

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August 5th, 2010

I’ve been touring in Maine all week and have not been as connected to the news as I normally am. So by the time I heard about Tanner, the boy who’s $15,000 wheelchair was broken by Air Canada, the airline had already taken measures to remedy the situation. Considering the nature of Tanner’s illness and his dependence on this unique chair, Air Canada did the only thing they could do: apologize, repair it immediately and make a meaningful gesture as compensation for the trouble. As I understand it Tanner would like to visit Disneyland and the airline will also make that happen.

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May 14, 2010

I was just forwarded this link reporting that Jessica Cabot, a woman from Vancouver who is blind, was left behind and locked inside a United plane upon landing in Chicago. She was accidentally discovered by maintenance workers shortly after.

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So there I was this Monday having breakfast with my folks at a local restaurant when my Mom told me that the new stove she had bought from Sears was not the one she thought it was when it was delivered and installed. What she was expecting was a stove with a convection oven and what she received was a standard stove. It turns out that she told the salesperson that she was looking to buy a convection oven and when they looked at different options somehow she chose a model that was cheaper (turns out cheaper because it was without the convection oven). Somehow my Mom lead the salesperson to believe that price was the bigger issue and he wasn’t clear that what she was getting didn’t have what she was looking for in the first place.

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Welcome to the RSR inaugural blog. I thought I might share a few ideas about what I think being on the Right Side of Right entails and welcome your feedback as part of this discussion. One of the main reasons United Breaks Guitars was successful was that it was so clear that I had done nothing inappropriate, I had run the course in United’s “customer service maze” and that the airline’s policies were designed in a such a way as to frustrate and wear people down. Being on the Right Side of Right infers a responsibility on both the customer and the business whose services they are buying.

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