United Breaks Guitars

Have you seen this yet? Have you ever been so frustrated at poor customer service and getting jerked around by a big company? Well, here's a creative solution. Dave Carroll of Sons of Maxwell witnessed his guitar being mishandled by United Airlines baggage handlers. He discovered it was broken, but United refused to do anything about it. He haggled with them for nine months and finally told the last person to say no to him that he'd be writing a series of 3 songs about his experience with them. The first of these songs was released (this week?) and it's awesome. (One day maybe I'll write a post about Canadian musicians...)

You can read his whole story here. And you should definitely watch the video. Poor, poor United. Murray found one news story about this that said United is now using this video and experience as part of their internal training to teach their employees how to better handle these situations. (For starters, you might not tell someone who lives in Halifax that they need to take their guitar in person to Chicago for inspection.)

10 comments:

The Holyoaks said...

Kiff and I loved this.

rychelle said...

this is great!

i had to share it with a friend, who was recently complaining about the lack of quality customer service these days.

Sarah said...

Funny story!
The link to the story isn't working... is it just me?

Cicada said...

Sarah,

It might just be you. I wrote this post on one computer and checked the link now from a different one and it's working. Look it up---it's worth reading!

Sarah said...

working now... weird.

Anonymous said...

Great song, and great way to speak up to large corporations to get them to listen. he did what every man would do in this situation, but with more thought. Loved it.

jeri said...

I loved this story and the song was great! I think it's funny that United is using the video in their training. I can just hear the training weasel:
"OK, those pesky customers actually CAN make their voices heard these days. So if he/she seems talented or tech-savvy, try not to be openly hostile. You're still not allowed to help them in any way. But maybe don't yawn in their faces."

Justin said...

Alma miss you!

ambrosia ananas said...

This guy is awesome.

Jen Davies, Ed.D., CCC-S, RP(Qualifying) said...

Dave Caroll and his brother actually come from Timmins, in northern Ontario, though the rest of the band comes from Halifax. Nice guys, all of them, and definitely didn't deserve the shabby treatment they got.