United Breaks Guitars - How to Get 500,000 People to Hate Your Company

[proteamone]

It is still United's managements fault: The baggage handlers were most likely understaffed- they had to cut corners to get their work done on time. trying to cut cost to save money backfired again.

[calflyboy]

The United Employees have lost their retirement package. They have taken 2 large pay cuts in the last 10 years. No pay raises in the last 10 years. And management does not let them compensate customers. What do you expect?????

[mechacode]

2,366,159 views currently. That's a lot of people that now think UA is a garbage company. Lmao @ their execs who thought it would be a good idea to screw over yet another customer. Now it's their turn to be screwed over.

[navtel]

unfortunately it is the mouth breathing baggage handlers and their bad attitude that created this mess. united did not deal with at all well. bad attitude from the top carries on down thru the ranks..

[DYNOBOMB1]

He is right...

[rolinbud]

Very well said.

[loverools]

Good words...Good  wisdom..thanks

[divin4ever]

True Dat!

[vikingwomanca]

The MANAGEMENT of UNITED needs to be FIRED! You should correct your title!

Its more than 2,000,000 viewers !

SO HOW MANY TICKETS have you LOST UNITED ???

[Defenstrator]

I have to disagree with the thesis presented. AS far as I can tell the chief problem is 1) United is bad at handling people's luggage, which is bad since it is a core part of the service and people really resent their stuff being destroyed or lost and 2) the have a very poor system in place for sealing with customer complaints. If those were fixed a creative counter message would not be needed.

[ThisCanadian]

the problem is the relentless sense of might makes right American Exceptionalism

Its disgusting that the 'take away lesson' from 'United Breaks Guitars' would be how to CYA, not "Be Decent" or stop treating customers like we're enemies who need to be abused & 'kept in our place'.

The answer isn't propaganda, but small-minded corporate employment 'metrics', goals, social structure & strategy.

If the corporate brass treats their employees like crap... then they'll treat the customers like crap.

[CayciEsref]

American Airlines is a worse nightmare than United Airlines. Please everybody pay attention; never fly with United Airlines & American Airlines...

[Alexmcgruer3]

2 M and counting ( number taken from news clip and tune. 8 AM NL time about 11:30 GMT

[MsSSnow]

Well said and very true.

[jpaultel]

It does't matter how many channels they have or how well the channels are used or how many people PR deploys. The fact is a brush off was intended right from the start and no plans to spend time or money addressing his complaints or concerns existed. The proof is seen in the behavior of the employees he first reported to, the last message from the Ms: "send no more emails. The answer is no." They waited to long and let it get too far. Once the song hit Youtube, United was a cooked goose.

[tmssac]

Some good thoughts. United's PR people took it in the poop shoot. They gotta be fired.

[rthinds]

I think Dave indicated that, despite all this, Ms. Irlweg did a remarkable job of upholding her employer's policies.

What Dave is railing against is THOSE very policies, NOT necessarily the employees who must enforce them.

[mrmres]

Ms Irlweg was merely playing "Good Cop" to UAL's "Bad Cop". Now, all of a sudden, UAL's answer is "YES":??? Do you honestly think that Ms Irlweg would merely "Go away" if UAL broke HER $3,000 guitar? Believe me, she would have made sure she was compensated...even if UAL damaged her Prada handbag. She's ingratiating & totally hypocritical. If Dave writes a song about how "nice" she was, I think I might puke.

[clifftreenc]

Take a trip someday to where Dave Carroll hails from Eastern Canada and you'll meet plenty of folks like Dave. And If you've never heard of Canadian East Coast music before I invite you to research the ECMA and you'll find that it is distinct a musical sound as country western, blues, or soul.

[JohnHedtke]

I travel a lot for business (author/speaker/consultant) and for years, I'll pay more and take more time to AVOID flying United. Their customer service is a model for how to piss off customers. (Even their long-time employees admit this when they're off the record.) I fly United only if there's no other way to get there. I've even driven and taken trains at times rather than fly United. They bite for service and on-time arrival.

Kudos to Dave Carroll! I'm looking forward to songs #2 & #3. :)

[AbuBakerSmith]

The Dave Carroll story shows United's consistent Customer Strategy. When I was in the Military and traveled a lot I used to flat out refuse to go if they booked me on United. United purposely screws people. They are truly horrid. Dave's video counter has been stuck on 641,937 views for a few hours now. realistically, he'll be over a million plays tonight.

[canafrank]

You are simply pathetic!!!

You screwed up so badly

Next time treat customers like people

You got what you deserve.

The gene is out of the bottle

toooo late..........