United Breaks Guitars

        Dave Carroll, an aspiring country music singer, was in Chicago, Ill., on a layover in spring of 2008. While he was there he witnessed the United Airlines baggage loaders throwing his guitar around down on the tarmac. His $3500 Taylor guitar was broken. This was not a welcome sight to the musician who was on his way to Nebraska for a week-long tour. He alerted three of the United employees who failed to do anything about the situation. Carroll later contacted United Airlines to ask for compensation. The Airline refused to pay for the damages, and as you can imagine, this was a frustration for Carroll.
        Since country music is about telling a story, the misfortunate situation provided Carroll with an opportunity to write a song. He and his band, Sons of Maxwell, wrote a song, “United Breaks Guitars,” and made a music video out of it that they posted to YouTube. Today, this song has over nine million views. The popularity of the video let Carroll to write two more songs about his experience. These YouTube videos caused United Airlines’ shareholders to lose $180 million.
        In 2009, United Airlines finally changed their position on the issue – they offered to pay for repairs for Carroll’s guitar, and they also offered Dave $1,200-worth of travel vouchers. This would have been a great public relations move had this been the immediate response from United Airlines. Unfortunately, United Airlines failed to recognize this public relations opportunity and lost more than customers. Once United offered Carroll compensation, he turned down the money and suggested that they donate it to a charity of their choice.
        Many major corporations, like United Airlines, need to improve their public relations. They need to get past the idea that since they are a large corporation, they can get away with almost anything. If United Airlines would have been more cooperative and customer-oriented from the beginning they could have avoided the whole fiasco.
        Some of the biggest things that United could have done to improve Carroll’s experience would be to immediately apologize for the damages the baggage handlers caused, and to tell Carroll that the baggage handlers involved would be spoken to in order to remind them to respect the passengers’ items, especially the fragile items like Carroll’s guitar.
        Another action that would have spoken volumes to Carroll would be to quickly repair, or replace his guitar. That is all that he wanted in the first place. Since Carroll is a musician, one of his most important tools is his guitar. Had this action been taken, perhaps such a harsh song would not have been written about the experience. United Airlines could have been perceived by the public as a company with excellent public relations; they would have retained many of their customers and also saved millions of dollars.
       Doing the right thing is not especially difficult. United Airlines needed to admit that they were wrong. Sometimes just wishing for the “wrong” to go away can bring some serious repercussions. United failed to see the big picture of their immediate actions and they found themselves to be in big trouble. Being in a customer oriented industry you have to be willing to sacrifice to meet the needs of your customers and to keep them happy.
        United Airlines’ public relations department had the opportunity to take this unfortunate event to show off how great their organization is. With these acts alone not only will Carroll think twice before flying United, but so will I. The decision to not compensate Carroll right away has hurt their reputation. Perhaps many of United’s clients would not have the power to wreak havoc like Carroll did, but experiences and word of mouth can do almost as much damage as a single YouTube video. Perhaps if an event like this occurs in the future, United will be more sympathetic towards their client and will think twice about how to handle the situation.