United Airlines just found out that the internet can deliver the truth at lightning speed and in many different ways. A guy named Dave Carroll got upset at United Airlines because they wouldn’t pay for a guitar they broke. Dave decided to do something about it. He wrote a song about United breaking his guitar, and put the video on YouTube. In less than 7 days, the video has been viewed by 2 ½ million people!
There also are over 13,000 comments posted on this video, and most of them are not sticking up for United.
Once a video is posted on YouTube, there is no way of stopping it. If United was serious about dealing with customers, this would never have happened. United will have to not only deal with the current problem with Dave, but all the other potential customers that can do this type of damage to their brand. This is a problem United can’t just gloss over with fancy PR, they will have to seriously look at their policies and procedures that inspired Dave to produce this song.
Dave Carroll writes how this song came about on his web site:
“In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.”
I hope Dave doesn’t cave into pressure from United and finishes the next two songs. If United was smart, they would solve their customer service problem soon. And if that actually happens, maybe they can hire Dave to sing their new jingle.
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