Harvard Business Review: Case study on “United Breaks Guitars“
by John Deighton, Leora Kornfield
Jan 6, 2010

University of North Carolina – School of Journalism and Mass Communications: Master Thesis Submission titled “Fighting the Social Media Wildfire : How Crisis Communications Must Adapt to Prevent from Fanning the Flames”
by Allison R. Soule,
2010

On March 31st, 2008, Dave Carroll & Sons of Maxwell were travelling to Nebraska for a week-long-tour, flying with United Airlines from Halifax to Omaha, by way of Chicago. On that first leg of the flight the band was seated at the rear of the aircraft and upon landing and waiting to deplane in order to make our connection a woman sitting behind Dave, not aware that we were musicians cried out: “My god they’re throwing guitars out there.” Our bass player Mike looked out the window in time to see his bass being heaved without regard by the United baggage handlers. Dave’s $3500 710 Taylor had been thrown before Mike’s and was crushed.

For the full United Breaks Guitars Story click here.

What ensured was a nine month ‘discussion’ with a United Airlines representative, Ms. Irlweg. The conversations ended with her saying United would not be taking any responsibility for what had happened and that that would be the last communication on the matter. At that moment it occurred to Dave that he had been fighting a losing battle all this time and that fighting over this at all was a waste of time. The system is designed to frustrate affected customers into giving up their claims and United is very good at it but Dave realized then that as a songwriter and traveling musician he wasn’t without options. In his final reply to Ms. Irlweg he told her that he would be writing three songs about United Airlines and his experience in the whole matter. He would then make videos for these songs and offer them for free download on YouTube and his own website, inviting viewers to vote on their favourite United song. His goal:  to get one million hits in one year.

Launched in July 2009, the first United Breaks Guitars video became one of YouTube’s greatest hits and caused an instant media frenzy across all major global networks and traditional/social media sources (including the likes of CNN, the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone Magazine, BBC and ABC’s ‘The View’). The story and the song was powered by a groundswell of grassroots support. What started off as a creative outlet for his frustration as a dismissed customer effectively has become a major agent for change around the World. He demonstrated the power of the individual in this age of social media and is a globally recognized advocate for customer experience improvement, giving others a voice. Consumers, business and industry now look to Dave Carroll and United Breaks Guitars as an example on where they stand on the ‘Right Side of Right.’ The impact of Dave’s music protest video has been so tremendous that it has opened new doors for him as a sought after public speaker (Brite Conference, NewComm Forum, Mesh Conference, Right Now Technologies, etc), as the ‘Musician with a Message’ and has earned him the title of modern day folk hero.

In United Breaks Guitars Song 2, Dave takes a closer look at his dealings with Ms. Irlweg and the flawed policies that she was forced to uphold.  Song 2 is an appeal to United to do the right thing because their policies are putting a real strain on what could be a terrific friendship between Ms. Irlweg and Dave.

The final video (United Breaks Guitars Song 3 – United We Stand on the Right Side of Right) acknowledges that Dave’s unfortunate experience with United has given his career an unexpected lift, and that he wishes United well with the changes that they say are coming, but that many people continue to face their own customer service nightmares. Catchy lyrics are delivered in a high energy, bluegrass tune featuring a premiere Canadian musician on fiddle and mandolin and a surprise dobro solo from a high profile Nashville recording artist, Jerry Douglas.

When Dave first set out to write a song about his broken guitar, he had no idea of how his story would resonate with so many people who have had similar experiences.  In response to their overwhelming feedback he created the Right Side of Right website so that everyone can more effectively share stories and seek out possible solutions.  Including finding ways for us to work with companies that truly want to deliver better experiences for their customers and who are striving to be on the “Right Side of Right.”

One of the key things Dave has learned from his United Breaks Guitars experience  is that the voice of one person is no longer “statistically insignificant” and that collectively we can improve the world one experience at a time.

United Breaks Guitars has become a case study for customer service & social media for organizations and educational institutions around the world, including the Harvard Business Review. Dave Carroll was named ‘Digital Artist of the Year’ (Music Nova Scotia) & United Breaks Guitars won ‘Video of the Year’ (Music Nova Scotia) in 2009. In September of 2009, Dave Carroll sang his testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington at a Congressional Hearing for the Passengers Bill of Rights. Additionally:

• TIME Magazine named United Breaks Guitars #12 out of the Top 50 Greatest YouTube Hits ever (2010)
• TIME Magazine named United Breaks Guitars #7 on the Top Viral Videos list of 2009
• United Breaks Guitars reached #1 on the UK Itunes Country song charts in July 2009
• United Breaks Guitars reached the top #14 on the Itunes Canada video charts July 2009
• United Breaks Guitars in real time reached the #1 Most Viewed, Discussed & Top Rated YouTube Music Video (in July 2009)
• United Breaks Guitars was named one of the top 5 most important videos in YouTube history

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.

If I were Air Canada I would look carefully into what happened to prevent this from reoccurring; but I must say the airline’s response, albeit likely fueled by the groundswell of public support for Tanner, should be commended. Air Canada found a 24 hour repair shop, had the wheelchair fixed and offered an apology that took responsibility for the damage and then they looked beyond the event to offer to fulfill one of Tanner’s dreams (to go to Disneyland). Their recovery from this incident was reflective of the outstanding nature of the poor customer service Tanner received; so AC was right in dispensing with regular company protocol for these matters.

When I speak at customer service and social media events and conferences I mention that the companies of tomorrow, who “get” social media today, understand that customer service issues are bound to occur but that they also need to have a recovery plan in place to deal with those. It’s nice to see that Air Canada is thinking about their future with this incident, by acknowledging that every single customer has a voice and deserves to be treated with respect. Congratulations to Tanner and his family for making themselves heard and empowering the rest of us in the process.

Dave

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.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/05/13/bc-blind-woman-plane-cabot.html

I’ve heard about this happening before with sleeping passengers implying that the crew failed to perform the final aisle check before leaving themselves. In this case however, someone on the crew would have interacted with the passenger at the start of the flight so, in addition to doing the final check, she was simply forgotten. Understandably this passenger was shaken by the experience and apparently could have been in the plane for much longer than the 10 minutes she was there.

What was United’s response?  They offered a $250 voucher for future travel and apologized for “the delay” in providing her with her escort.  I think the unexceptional monetary offer should have been a little more in-line with the exceptionally poor customer service, but I know the written response was just plain insulting.

This response demonstrates that the priority with United’s damage control policy in customer service failures continues to focus on protecting themselves legally. Their lawyers write carefully worded statements that either fail to take responsibility or they phrase them in such a way as to apologize for the situation but not the fact that they may have caused it.  The response should have been simple:

1)    We dropped the ball on this one

2)    We’re sorry for that

3)    We’re now going to do something that will make your next experience with United extra special (maybe even ask the customer: “what would you deem fair”)

4)    We’ll find out how this happened and will make changes to ensure it doesn’t happen again and we’ll notify you when we put those safeguards into place

When you screw-up admit and make it right.  Don’t call your lawyer and say: “get me out of this will ya?”   When your customer service goes to crap the answer is to admit it, apologize and clean it up, not cover it in varnish and show the world what you did.

People despise being treated like fools more than they despise being inconvenienced and when you treat people like fools, it makes them want to show others who the real fools are.  I’ve been asked a few times why I followed through on making three videos about my experience with United after the first one went viral.  Stories like these make me wonder why I stopped at just three songs and begs the question: “Can Jessica Cabot carry a tune?”

When the new stove was installed my Mom couldn’t find the convection controls and so she called the store and found out she now owned something she didn’t want and that to get the stove she wanted would cost more for the difference in price and a restocking fee of $140. That just didn’t seem right to me but I knew that Sears would be within their rights to insist that it work that way. After all, it is the customers ultimate responsibility to know what they are buying isn’t it? To me though it seems, if you own a business that it is your job is to make sure your customers are completely satisfied and not to penalize them when they aren’t.

So I visited the store and explained that my parents didn’t want to rock the boat and would live with the stove they now had if need be. I asked her though:  “considering they really thought what they were buying was a convection oven, couldn’t they just return the oven and pay the difference in price, and not the restocking fee?” To make a long story short Sears said, “Yes!”

My Mom will get the stove she wanted for the extra money and not be charged a $140 restocking fee. What does Sears get? They get my parents return business, my business and my willingness to tell people about a great customer experience with their company. This is one of those situations where the company didn’t really do anything wrong so it wasn’t obligated, morally or otherwise, to keep the customer happy. Sears saw the bigger picture though and invested in their customer. That investment will pay dividends down the road and companies of all sizes can learn a lesson from this experience. I’m pretty sure my Mother will be certain of what she is buying the next time she shops at Sears, but the point is there will certainly be a next time.

Thanks for doing the right thing Sears!

In the case of UBG I had a responsibility to ensure my guitar was in a durable hard-shell case that could withstand a reasonable amount of handling. I did that and when it got broken, I was well positioned to expect them to do something about it. Had I packed my guitar in a soft-shell case it wouldn’t have been reasonable to assume that it would be returned to me unscathed. I did my part. United did not.

Being on the Right Side of Right doesn’t end there, however. My initial issue with United’s customer service was the disrespect I was shown as an individual by the employees I met at O’Hare. Remember, at this point I didn’t know my guitar had been broken, only that it had been thrown. Their reaction implied that the mishandling of instruments/luggage was “business as usual” and that I should have known that. The temptation to react angrily to the indifference of people in a position to help you can be intense but being on the Right Side of Right demands that you don’t. Instead, ask yourself some questions. Who are these people? Maybe they just had the worst day of their lives or have personal problems that make your issue pale in comparison. Take a second and try to see yourself in them. It doesn’t mean you should accept damage to your property but this awareness that you are connecting to another human being, not unlike yourself in many ways, will help you to not react in a negative way. Confrontation makes matters worse and has no place on the Right Side of Right. In fact being on the Right Side of Right eliminates the need for confrontation because your position is impenetrable, having nothing to defend. Taking responsibility for yourself and working towards reasonable results is what RSR is all about.

In my case I met three people in Chicago within five minutes who shared the same indifferent reaction to my guitar (four or even five people if you include the baggage handlers). My first question was “what kind organization do these people belong to that would allow indifference like this to occur?”  The answer came in my next question: “Is there something this company has done in the way they treat their employees that has trickled down to the way they treat me as a customer?”  Since July, I have heard from countless United employees and labour groups who would give an emphatic “yes” to that question. It doesn’t excuse what happened to my guitar but by asking those questions, I gained an awareness that helped govern my reaction going forward.  There was no justification in ever getting angry at any United employee I would encounter over this.  The fact that this indifference was more a rule than an exception told me the problem lay more with the organization and less with any individual. While certain employees could use a little coaching in NOT paying forward the disrespect they feel from their employer, getting angry at them, as a customer, serves no useful purpose.

Instead, I approached every interaction with United as a step in the right direction at getting a fair resolution. My Taylor guitar held a lot of sentimental value to me and so I spent $1200 on restoring it. Ultimately, I didn’t ask United for the replacement cost of the guitar but rather $1200 in flight vouchers to resolve the issue and UBG was born when that offer was rejected and I was told no other offers would be made. I had done all they asked to find a fair solution from the high ground and so I felt justified in getting creative to bring awareness of this problem to those who might agree that United’s policies needed changing. What I didn’t realize was how many like me there are with negative experiences, and how deep the greater problem is with customer experience  around the world. 

When you operate from the Right Side of Right and you are unable to arrive at a fair resolution it implies the system you are dealing with is broken and in need of a fix. I believe people on the RSR have a responsibility to do what they can to improve that system not only for those following behind but also for themselves because, if we don’t, we’re doomed to repeat the unlearned lessons of the past. The United Breaks Guitars trilogy has helped highlight problems with poor customer experience and raise awareness that good customer service is a necessary component to any successful business. While a lot of effort on the part of many went into the creation of the UBG series, it felt not so much like work because we were operating from the Right Side of Right. In my experience, changing the system is more fruitful than trying to fight it and the only place to do that is from that vantage point.

Dave

One of the most annoying concepts far too many companies embrace when it comes to customer service is that of “statistical insignificance.” Their goal: “Get it mostly right, most of the time,” so that the number of customer service failures are so few in comparison to the number of satisfied customers or uneventful interactions that they are statistically insignificant (a.k.a., “not worth worrying about”).

The airline industry operates that way and that is why “United Breaks Guitars,” about my Taylor guitar being broken by baggage handlers and the indifference shown to me by the airline, has had such a profound impact.

In September, I was in Washington, D.C., to partake in a hearing in support of a Passengers Rights Bill sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). I was invited by Kate Hanai, founder of FlyersRights (formerly the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights), who began the organization in 2006 after having had the unfortunate experience of being on an airport tarmac stranded in a plane for several hours without adequate food, water and bathroom supplies. Kate has worked with politicians and action groups, and thought I might have something to add in terms of how property is handled. I was happy not only to give my testimony, but also to literally sing my testimony in a Congressional hearing room on Capitol Hill.

At that hearing a former airline CEO spoke in support of the bill, but I had difficulty understanding whose side he was on because his analysis was not customer service-centric, but focused on the challenges airlines face today. He said although it was unfortunate that people were trapped inside these planes, such long delays are “statistically insignificant” when measured against the thousands of flights where that doesn’t occur. If this gentleman were in college he would have gotten an “A” in stats class, but an “F” in customer service. It’s my argument that any company that shares his philosophy is shortsighted and doomed in the long run.

United Airlines has, on more than one occasion, issued press releases reminding us that 99.6 percent of their bags arrive on time and without incident. I was told that United flies 80 million passengers a year so, although most of the bags make it, according to my calculations that leaves a whopping 360,000 baggage incidents yearly. Is that statistically insignificant? To a mathematician it might be, but if you run an airline or have anything to do with customer service, seeing those kinds of numbers involving your company should leave you hunched in a corner in a cold sweat, rocking back and forth in the fetal position. It takes just three years for United to amass 1 million customers who have had delayed or damaged baggage. How many people will hear about these bad experiences? Getting it “mostly right” is nothing to boast about, and anyone with an understanding of the power of social media knows the significance of those numbers.

It’s been said that in the “old days” (maybe only a decade ago) that people who had a positive customer service experience would share that with three people. If they had a bad experience, they would tell 14. Clearly, bad news travels fastest and that hasn’t changed. But today, social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube ensure that news travels exponentially. Whereas before I might have told 14 people that my guitar was seen being mishandled and broken, as of today I have reached more than 6 million people on YouTube with my story and, according to some estimates, some 100 million people if you total all media references.

I get the sense that big companies like United, in shooting for “mostly right, most of the time” and trying to ride out the negative experiences until they go away, are still relying on antiquated thinking when it comes to customer care. Today’s healthiest companies understand that good customer service is a requirement for success. They shoot to “get it right every time,” knowing there will be breakdowns along the way, but their customer service model has room to recover. Their philosophy starts with the fact that all customers deserve a positive experience — not most customers, but every one of them. The fact that even a small percentage of a customer base is unsatisfied is abhorrent to a customer-centric company and it shows in how they recover from a bad experience.

Companies that wish to be profitable a decade from now will adopt this approach to customer care because they understand that there is no part of that pie that can be marginalized without risking a viral backlash. In my case, one bad customer service experience was heard around the world. As more dissatisfied customers find creative ways to use social media, companies subscribing to a philosophy that accepts the notion “statistical insignificance” in their customer care will be compelled to care more or become a statistic of their own under the category “companies that used to exist.”

In this world, you get what you give.  Bullfrog puts the power, literally, in people’s hands to replenish our world for future generations.  But they also contribute a portion of profits to other organizations who are striving for sustainability.  That’s full circle.

Simple actions make a difference and I’m proud of what Bullfrog Power is working to do, one home and business at a time.   It also means that I can be a customer – and partner – with a locally-based company who understands my community and is working to make it a better place for my son to grow up in.

As a musician, creativity is such an important source of inspiration. Similarly, Bullfrog Power has used their creativity to inspire greater use of renewable energy by homes, business and the corporations who fuel them.
Bullfrog Power is a business that aligns with my values and I have to admit, I dig that frog on the website.