When something goes wrong on a United Airlines flight, Barbara Higgins hears about it. And as the company’s vice president of customer contact centers, she heard — or rather saw — trouble when she opened her mailbox a few weeks ago and watched the viral video United Breaks Guitars. But no one could have anticipated what happened next. I asked her to explain.
United Breaks Guitars is up to almost five million views on YouTube. What happened here?
We made a number of mistakes that, when added together, made terrific fodder for a video. But essentially Canadian musician Dave Carroll filed a claim with us when he discovered damage to his guitar after he flew from Halifax through Chicago to his gig in Omaha. When the claim was received, the standard 24 hours timeframe had passed. The 24-hour guideline is in place to ensure we can promptly identify and make amends for damage that happened while bags were in our care, while also protecting the company from fraud.
Just for the record, does United break a lot of guitars?
No, of course not. In fact, I think people would be amazed at our track record in which more than 99.95 percent of our guests’ bags are delivered on-time and with no damage whatsoever. That’s like three to four bags every 100,000 guests. Of course any bag lost or damaged is one too many, but clearly our employees do great work safely transporting thousands of checked bags, including guitars, tubas and drums that belong to many Grammy award-winning musicians. We even fly precious cargo like flowers, fine wine and fruit across the ocean.
What regretfully happened was an anomaly, not the norm, and was clearly an unintentional accident.
If you’d had a chance to review this case, how would you have handled it differently?
We could have done a better job helping him report the damage when he first noticed it being mishandled, or immediately when it was discovered, which would have enabled the claim to be resolved promptly. That’s the premise of how we will use this incident for training … that it’s all of our jobs to ensure our guests are taken care of.
I understand a sequel of the video is in the works, focusing on the agent who denied Dave Carroll his initial claim. What are your expectations?
We expect the second video to be as light-hearted as the first, and have only asked that it not attack specific people. As Mr. Carroll has said directly, the agent he encountered is a great employee, unflappable and acted in the interests of the United policies she represented, and we couldn’t agree more. But in all candor, Mr. Carrroll has made his point, we have incorporated the experience into our training.
How, exactly, would a video like this be incorporated into training?
It will provide all of us — regardless of where we work or in which department — with an example of how we can be more empathetic to our guests when situations suggest we should. In our business, how we conduct ourselves is important, and our employees understand that treating each other and our guests in a courteous and respectful manner is a vital part of running a good airline.
Are the agents handling claims empowered to use their discretion when dealing with grievances such as Carroll’s? Have you changed your processes since this video was released?
Our agents are empowered to escalate serious concerns that they hear from our guests. We have since provided them with a better way to do that to ensure we can be more responsive to special situations that arise, while also protecting us from the fraud that we see.
What lessons, if any, has United learned about social media as a result of United Breaks Guitars?
We understand the power of social media and the implications it has on our reputation, and realize it has a role in our communicating to our guests and the public at large. We also put the highest priority on making things right directly with our customer in the most helpful, meaningful and immediate manner, and most often that means picking up the phone and calling them, rather than using social media to talk to everyone about one person’s personal travel experience. So, like most things, it’s a combination of ways to connect to our guests.
I’m told that there may be a collaboration with Sons of Maxwell and United on the third video. Sounds as if there are no hard feelings, and you did it all without the help of a beer summit. Can you give me a preview of video number three, and what you hope to accomplish with it?
We have been invited to have a role in the third song, and what that looks like is best answered by the musical talent and expertise demonstrated by Mr. Carroll.
Our expertise is in running a good airline. I talk to our guests every day about what is on their minds and they are telling us in our customer satisfaction scores that we are improving. While there are always opportunities to do better in any business, there are many untold stories about our great employees who are at the forefront of running a good airline for our guests.
We have made significant improvements in operating on-time flights and delivering courteous service. In fact, we ranked No. 1 in on-time performance among the five major U.S. network carriers year-to-date through May and though we did slip a bit in June, we are back to fighting it out for the top spot in July.
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I”d be curious to know how exactly does the 24 hour reporting time frame protect the company from fraud. It seems more likely that it allows United to deny otherwise meritorous claims because of an artificial short reporting deadline.
I agree with the above comment. Especially when people are in transit, 24 hours sounds to me like a ridiculously short time frame in which to demand a claim be filed.
“We made a number of mistakes that, when added together, made terrific fodder for a video. But essentially Canadian musician Dave Carroll filed a claim with us when he discovered damage to his guitar after he flew from Halifax through Chicago to his gig in Omaha. When the claim was received, the standard 24 hours timeframe had passed.”
Um, WRONG! He makes a point in his writings and the song that he IMMEDIATELY notified United personelle about what he witnessed on the tarmac at the airport and none of them would help him.
Ms. Higgins states, “In fact, I think people would be amazed at our track record in which more than 99.95 percent of our guests’ bags are delivered on-time and with no damage whatsoever. That’s like three to four bags every 100,000 guests.”
Actually, a success rate of 99.95% translates to 5 problems out of every 10,000 passengers. Interesting use of the modifier “like”.
As a Nashville Musician –
the FIRST thing i do when i see my guitar come through baggage, is open it and look at every inch of it. The case included. Realistically, if your guitar means that much to you, you should check it. Every guitarist that uses their guitar as a job DREADS checking it under the plane.
Ah United! The guitar story reminds me of the day when I traveled to Eugene, OR from NYC via SFO. Upon arriving in Eugene I saw tire tracks across my now much smaller luggage. The United agent’s response was a classic “We only handle lost luggage claims at this airport, you will have to report damage to the San Francisco luggage claim center!”
@Eric Eichorn — while I agree that her math is not perfect, realize that not every passenger checks a bag. It’s certainly more than 1 in 10, though. That said, I do think that lost and damaged luggage is, at worst, a relatively very, very minor problem with the airline industry. I’d rather focus on less trivial, and more common, problems.
While it’s nice to see a corporation not bluff and bluster about the video, there’s still a bit too much spin in Ms. Higgins’ response. The behavior of the baggage handlers described doesn’t sound like “clearly an unintentional accident” to me; it sounds like irresponsible behavior practically calculated to ensure damage to the baggage by handlers who are poorly supervised, at best. I presume that Mr. Carroll had other witnesses on the plane that can back up his account, or the airline would be suing him for publishing a libel instead of taking their medicine.
Having run a multi-million dollar risk management function myself, I’m quite sure that fraud is common in claims against airlines; airlines have a right to protect themselves against fraud, but describing the 24-hour reporting policy as operating in the customer’s favor is disingenuous. Considering how hard it can be to even contact claims personnel at airlines, it may actually be impossible in some cases. Most customers aren’t going to see their baggage being flung around on the tarmac, as Mr. Carroll apparently did, so a lot of that 24 hours may be eaten up in transit. Call it like it is: the 24-hour rule is there to protect the airlines, because endemic fraud across all walks of life has obliged companies like these to protect themselves.
i toured as a guitar tech with some pretty major acts for over a decade. although i got in some pretty heated ‘discussions’ with airline personnel over the years about exactly how certain musical instruments should be treated and what the airline’s exact requirements and responsibilities in handling instruments are, i never had a guitar turn up broken (many thanks to all those who handled these instruments)!
my greatest complaint over the years is that most airline and security personnel aren’t given proper training regarding the airlines’ policies regarding the transportation of musical instruments. they often do things that are against official company policy, like refusing to transport an instrument unless a loss/damage waiver is signed. this document absolves them of responsibility if they break or lose your instrument, and places the blame for their loss/damage on you for having trusted them to transport it in the first place.
I think my favorite part is when he asks if agents are empowered to use discretion in handling grievances like this, and her answer (essentially “no”) was more spin: “Our agents are empowered to escalate serious concerns.” I think they’d rather just say “no” than bother to try to track down a supervisor to escalate something. They’re obviously not allowed to take care of anything themselves.
Its easy to say they ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’ done things differently. Of course they are going to use this to improve customer service, yada, yada yada.
It a training tool only because they got caught and embarrassed by a unique complaint. Had Mr Carroll not written a song and published it on YouTube, United will still be ignoring him. They only stepped up and accepted responsiblity because of the negative attention they received.
I have no doubts that Ms. Higgins is sincere in her efforts but I don’t believe she would have gotten involved without the public attention. Shame on United and the staff that ignored the problem. How about fixing problems before they get national attention.
“Our employee that failed you has been demoted, fired, flogged, publically executed and their families have been exiled to a slum in a 3rd world country. Is there anything else we can do to make you happy?”
Ms. Higgins claims:
“What regretfully happened was an anomaly, not the norm, and was clearly an unintentional accident.”
It was not an unintentional accident. Guitars, a physically obvious fragile baggage category, werre THROWN, something which should never happen.
And about that immediate reporting rule: If United is so all fired up about helping their customers while keeping itself safe from fraud, they’d better post an employee with full powers to launch damage claims by every baggage pick up point used by their airline so that claims can be made immediately. And those employees should not leave until all baggage is picked up and the customers have left. There were no United staffers available when DC and co. were reuinted with their baggage.
As had been said before the 24 hour reporting time limit is to make it as difficult as possible for reporting, while seeming generous. Mr Carroll had said when he arrived at his destination there were no United employees available to complain to and he had to leave to get to his first stop on his tour. Additionally the guitar was in a stout traveling case not the carrying cases shown in the video and United did not deny what happened they would not accept responsibility.
I happened to see the video the day I had a flying fiasco (something I am still dealing with) and when I see all the promises United made to improve customer service I realize they are empty. It is a couple months later and I had to deal with terrible service. I understand bags get lost, flights get canceled, but to have representatives, rude, unhelpful and unintelligible is surprising after this public marketing mess United had to deal with. I was treated better by the other airline the entire time by all customer representatives except United’s. So it seems they claim to use this as customer service enhancement oppotunities and it is all just for show.
My husband is a guitarist who does whatever he can to carry his very valuable acoustic guitar on board the plane. Certain airlines are better than others (Iberia expects guitars on board). At the very least handing the instrument over along with the strollers and wheelchairs at the door to the plane promises more gentle handling. He also detunes the guitar if he has to put it in the hold, dramatically takes off his belt and further secures the hard case. Putting large red and white fragile signs all over the case also helps.
Another element of the United tale. Airlines rarely cover the actual value of an intrument (even if its entirely their fault) in the best case scenario, $500 to $1000 is probably the cap. If an instrument has a greater value than $500 a traveling musician should have a rider policy with their own insurance company to cover the possibility of losing a valuable instrument.
Years ago he imported an extremely rare and valuable guitar from Spain via Pan Am. It was then impossible to arrange insurance to cover the value ($30,000 in today’s $’s). The guitar made it to Kennedy where it was stolen by baggage handlers.
Pam Am paid only for the weight of the package, which worked out to be about $200. Which when we read the fine print was the stated policy.
I can guarantee you they’ve learned nothing of this, I flew United through O’Hare the week after Dave’s first video was launched and watched in disbelief as three United staff members and two security guards stood idly as a young girl in tears missed her plane that we could all clearly see was still outside waiting to take off.
As soon as she realized she was at the wrong gate (F7B and not F7A), she approached staff for help as the door to the plane corridor had just been closed seconds before (literally closing in her face as she ran to catch the gate). Two security guards kept inspecting passengers (one commented that it wasn’t his job to help passengers). Another United rep said it wasn’t his gate to look after and continued to sign passengers into his gate. At the gate in question, a United lady (looked young, maybe summer student?) just sat and watched it unfold never even getting up or coming to the assistance of the now distraught passenger. After a few minutes, United rep assigned to the gate reappeared and said sorry he had closed the door and that it was too late. He did not even try to contact the plane or reopen the door (and the plane was there for at least five more minutes before taxiing off which all of us could see plain as day through the window). We watched in stunned silence while he idly chatted with other coworkers while the plane was still outside. Once it took off, after letting the girl cry for five more minutes, he told her to go see customer service to book another flight. Her problem was obviously not his problem. Half hour later he joked to other passengers saying, “Oh don’t worry, people miss flights here all the time..”
(I have been on other airlines where we waited up to 20 minutes for passengers to make connections, and here flawed procedures and apathetic staff can’t connect a passenger to a plane that is just thirty feet away.)
United – you have serious customer service issues to address. Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards finding a solution.
One problem is that people make all kinds of assumptions about situations when they know nothing of the details.
Mr. Robichaud’s statement is full of completely ridiculous assertions. He guarantees they have learned nothing from the incident because of something he witnessed the VERY NEXT WEEK? If Higgins is putting new training into place, it unfortunately isn’t like waving a magic wand and transforming every problem immediately. Also, this situation has nothing to do with baggage handling.
This sounds like a classic case of a passenger unfortunately not being able to read the signage to ensure they were at the correct gate. There does come a time when doors need to be closed. I can’t believe the number of times I see people sauntering up to a gate minutes before departure and are incredulous when the world has not stopped for them. Other employees have other assignments, and cannot always stop assisting other passengers.
The bluster of people like Mr. Robichaud (and others here) unfortunately obscures the very real problems that sometimes can be fixed. Bad attitudes are present on BOTH sides of the counter, and they have no place on either one.
Thanks for the reply Scott.
I will admit that yes as a passenger watching events unfold, that we do not have all the details. And you are also correct that this was within one week of the video being released and it will take longer for changes to filter through the organization.
As fellow passengers, there was a number of us almost on the edge of our seats that day (and would probably have liked to intervene if not for 9/11 and the fear of missing our own flights). Having the video fresh in our minds, we saw the same type of indifference as portrayed by the “employees” of the same airport as shown in the video. The not my job, not my problem was the point of my post. We as fellow passengers may not have all the details of any situation, but attitudes and optics are what affect reputations. Had I observed assistance or at the very least empathy being offered to this young girl, I would likely have had a positive response.
Maybe seeing someone come up to her and saying “Sorry you missed your flight, but come with me and we’ll see what we can do about getting you on the next one” would have been better then letting her cry on her own for five minutes and then pointing to the other end of the airport and telling she has to go find customer service on her own (she was pretty shaken at this point).
I will add to my story as I rereading it I may have had a more negative tone than I had intended. Later, we did find out that this young girl made her way to the customer service desk, and was booked on a later flight. Situation saved, but I think it could also have been done without the anxiety, the frustration and the tears.
I took a trip to Edmonton canada about a year ago on United Airlines, when i got there they told me that my luggage and my guitar was still in Phenix AZ.
Needless to say, i had to perform that friday night in the same cloths i travel in, i had to do without my guitar for the entire weekend. They told me that i would get my things the next morning; I ended up getting my cloths and guitar the Monday morning when i was checking out out of the Hotel. I new from that experience that i would never travel with United Airlines again, Never.