In A Connected World, Where Everyone Has A Voice, Customers Win

from the welcome-to-the-modern-world dept

One of the key underlying themes about the posts we write here -- whether they're about RIAA lawsuits or public policy or business models or security through obscurity or anything else, really -- is that one of the amazing things about the internet is that it gives everyone a voice. And when everyone has a voice, the customer wins. Period. Customers will always be able to get the word out if you screw them over, and so any business has to be focused on providing positive value to customers, not pissing them off. A great example of how old school companies still don't get this (and what happens in response) was sent in by Jeremy Oudit, alerting us to how singer Dave Carroll dealt with a horrible customer service experience with United Airlines. Basically, United broke an expensive guitar in transit and refused to do anything about it. So, he started writing songs about United's terrible customer service and put them on YouTube, along with the story, and they're getting hundreds of thousands of views: This is just the first of at least three songs on the subject, called "United Breaks Guitars"... How much does all that bad publicity cost? How much would it have cost to have compensated Dave for the broken guitar?

Filed Under: business models, customer service, customers win, dave carroll, united breaks guitars
Companies: united airlines