United Breaks Guitars

In 2008, Dave Carroll, along with his band, The Sons of Maxwell were traveling from Halifax to Omaha. During their layover in Chicago, they noticed that their luggage, including musical instruments was being tossed around by the United Airlines bag transporters. One of the pieces being tossed was Dave’s $3500 guitar.
The group arrived in Omaha at 12:30 in the morning and was very tired. There were no United employees in sight and Dave’s guitar case looked undamaged so they continued on their way to their hotel. Later the next day Dave discovered that his guitar had been badly damaged. He contacted United and told them the story. United expressed their sympathy and told him to start a claim and go back to Halifax where his trip began, but United doesn’t really have a presence in Canada.
Greg continued in trying to solve the problem by remaining in contact with United, but they consistently misplaced his claim number and sent him on a wild goose chase giving him different numbers of employees to call- none of them really helping him. Finally after nine months of trying to at least be reimbursed for the $1200, he spent on repairing the guitar, United denied Dave’s claim and told him they would not take responsibility for his broken guitar. It was then that Dave promised United that he would write three songs, each with a video, about his experience with the airline and post them on the internet for the world to see.
So far, two songs and their videos are posted on the internet and have received millions of views. Many believe the “United Breaks Guitars” songs have had a considerable impact on United’s business. According to Chris Ayres of the Times Online in the U.K., the Dave Carroll mishap has cost United $180 million. Just days after the first song went online, United’s stock prices dropped by 10 percent.
This whole incident shows the impact of public relations. Good PR can have a huge impact for good on a company, but bad PR, as in this case, can have a huge impact for bad. When the publics’ view of a company is poor, then the business suffers. Even one person can have great power in hurting a company, especially with the internet where information is very accessible a spreads extremely fast. The story has gotten the attention of newspapers and people are blogging and commenting about it on the internet. Most of the blog comments are praising Dave, relating to his experience and are negative toward United.
United is probably kicking themselves that they didn’t take care of Dave’s concern in the first place. With the money they have apparently lost, they could have bought Dave 52,000 equivalent guitars. It goes to show that taking care of customers, even if it costs a good amount initially, is worth it. There will always be incidents in any company when an employee makes a mistake or a customer is in some way treated unfairly. This is almost impossible to avoid, but the companies that make it up to the customer are the ones that keep their reputation and business.
The incident that occurred in Chicago in the spring of 2008 may have seemed very minimal and insignificant to united Airlines then, but neglecting it and not treating Dave considerately has come back to haunt them.