Last month, Canadian musician Dave Carroll gave United Airlines a gift. After battling with their complaints department for 9 months he gathered his band and created a catchy video entitled "United Breaks Guitars." It was an instant YouTube hit, attracting over 5.2 million views. For perspective that’s more views than Obama received for his presidential acceptance speech. In response, United gave Carroll a quiet $3000 (which he had them re-route to charity) and issued a few feeble tweets on Twitter about “making things right.”
Carroll and his band promised they would write two more songs about the incident, and last week they delivered.
"United Breaks Guitars Song 2" has already gathered ¼ million views. Both songs combined have attracted the equivalent of the entire population of Chicago, United's home city, twice over.
Millions of people laughing, sharing, and rallying around a relatively minor complaint? This is a golden opportunity for United Airlines. It’s a lighthearted song or two about mishandled baggage and poor customer service, not a frightening video of an in-flight fuel leak or a crash investigation. This is not the time for formal apologies, small donations or inaction. It’s time to fight social media with social media.
What if United collaborated with Carroll on Song 3? What if they engaged the public and asked their millions of viewers to submit and vote on new lyrics or song titles through Twitter or YouTube? What if the winners were flown to Chicago to appear in the video? What if they put their best baggage handlers on drums -- chosen through an uplifting 'United’s Best Baggage Handler' contest -- and had their best customer service reps on the tambourine? What if Glenn Tilton, United Airlines’ CEO, had a cameo? If they really wanted to capture our hearts they could have their in-house legal counsel singing backup.
United Airlines: embrace the enemy. Engage the masses. Turn this into a hilarious and powerful success story while the world is still watching.
Follow Andrew Cherwenka on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cherwenka
Still, it's accurate enough to say 5.5M views represents millions of viewers. The Chicago x2 analogy is just to give it perspective. I was going to say it's the same as showing it 95 times to a capacity crowd at Yankee stadium but that's getting a bit crazy.
And I suspect, if United tries to use Dave Carroll and United Breaks Guitars to their advantage...it's going to backfire on them.
As said in my previous post here, we are improving our processes. This second video is suggesting we do something that we’ve already done -- and that is to provide our agents with a better way to escalate and respond to special situations like this.
When the claim was received, the standard 24 hours timeframe had passed. The 24-hour guideline is in place to ensure we promptly identify and make amends for damage that happened while bags were in our care, while also protecting the company from fraud.
We have long said that we are using the video as part of our training. In our business, how we conduct ourselves is important, and all of us understand that treating each other and our customers in a courteous and respectful manner is a vital part of running a good airline.
He has made his point, we have since worked with him directly to fix, and in recent statements, Mr. Carroll described our baggage service representative in this second video as a “great employee who acted in the best interests of the company,” and we could not agree more.
We are embracing Mr. Carroll (who I personally consider a BFF) and feedback from the masses, and while I appreciate the marketing suggestions, we are instead using this as an opportunity to improve our service.
He told you clearly after his last encounter that he would write three songs. He is following through on his promise. Something United failed to do repeatedly. It's called discipline. You clearly communicate your position, which Mr. Carroll did. You clearly state the consequences, which Mr. Carroll did. Then you follow through. Which Mr. Carroll is doing. Everyone from teachers to parents to dog trainers knows the basics of discipline.
Except, it appears, corporate America.
I'm glad to read that United is making improvements. But I think you need to work on your "flexibility" since in reading Mr. Carroll's long version of the incident, United failed to be flexible on several occasions. And those were caused by United's failure to respond in a timely manner and/or giving false information to Mr. Carroll that resulted in his claim being filed after the 24 hour period.
Almost makes it sound like United's baggage handling version of the health care industry's rescission.
I'll bet your detailed comments here are going a long way toward winning back anyone who reads it. To hear directly from you, a United Airlines employee, that 99.95 percent of customers’ bags are delivered on-time and without incident - and that Grammy award-winning musicians trust their gear to UAL - is refreshing.
I only hope more people see it. Some will skim these comments and be equally impressed as me but there are still millions that think UAL is staying silent. Hence the 'fight fire with fire' reco for greater visibility, although I'll be the first to admit that my odd suggestions are just idle thought starters. I look forward to seeing more great responses like this and some proactive marketing initiatives from UAL.