79. United Breaks Guitars

This is a classic case study on how a crisis can strike from the most unexpected situations. One fine day Dave Carroll and his band were travelling to Nebraska with United Airlines for a music concert. The flight landed on O’Hara, Chicago which was the connecting station. While in Chicago, Dave heard a passenger behind him say, ‘My God, they're throwing guitars out there’. He realised that the guitars might be his and he alerted a few employees who were very indifferent towards him. Upon landing in Nebraska his fears were confirmed when he saw his Taylor guitar broken.

The incident made him very angry and rightfully so. This kind of service and indifferent attitude from a reputated airlines was completely unacceptable. He registered many complaints but received no positive response from the airlines.

After this bad customer experience and their indifferent attitude towards David and his guitar, United Airlines continued as they were without any regrets. And they were right because what could unsatisfied, angry passengers do, right? But, guess what! The joke’s on them. Because a year later a song came and everything went haywire for the brand.

The song received 150,000 views in one day, it was a major hit and created a buzz. The airlines unsuspecting the incident received a major backlash and became a matter of joke. The song made a huge dent in the brand’s reputation.

Because of the response that it received, Dave and his band came up with two other songs and made this into a trilogy of protest songs.

This incident is a classic example of how an unsatisfied customer can harm the reputation of a well-established brand. Customer is the king and as corporate communication professionals our first priority should be to understand what is at stakes and communicate effectively to manage relations.