And now an update on an interview I published last week with United Airlines regarding the viral video controversy, United Breaks Guitars.
The sequel to the first music video has been released this morning, and it’s a … polka.
In the interview, United’s Barbara Higgins said she had high hopes for the follow-up.
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.
Apparently Carroll isn’t done making his point.
In the video, he not only names his United adversary, but he calls the airline’s policies “flawed” and adds, “I think you owe me for wrecking my guitar.”
Carroll seems to delight in showing United staff destroy musical instruments. But perhaps the most memorable scene at the end of the video depicts a crowd of disenchanted passengers who are apparently unhappy with the way in which they’ve been treated by the airline.
Light-hearted? Yes.
Devastating? Without a question.
Update: A United spokeswoman notes that the video is a little out of date.
We have since worked with him directly to fix, and in addition to unfairly singling out one of our people, the second video is suggesting we do something that we’ve already done — and that is to provide our agents with a better way to escalate and respond to special situations.
(See the full text in the comments.)
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I love the fact that United thinks that by calling it “light-hearted” they can disregard the fact that it boldly highlights their flawed service.
The velvet glove of cute music. What can United do against this? Nothing? The guy is right!
That is correct…in recent statements, Mr. Carroll described our baggage service representative as a “great employee who acted in the best interests of the company,” and we could not agree more.
He has made his point, we have since worked with him directly to fix, and in addition to unfairly singling out one of our people, the second video is suggesting we do something that we’ve already done — and that is to provide our agents with a better way to escalate and respond to special situations. While his anecdotal experience is unfortunate, the fact is that 99.95 percent of our customers’ bags are delivered on-time and without incident, including instruments that belong to many Grammy award-winning musicians.
In our business, how we conduct ourselves is important, and all of us understand that treating each other and our customers in a courteous and respectful manner is a vital part of running a good airline.
This guy needs to get a life already. Why would you check an expensive guitar with any airline? And if you do, why wouldn’t you get an approrpriate case for it and/or insure it, a Halliburton or something else unbreakable. He just wants publicity at this point.
When consumers are actually willing to pay the real cost of air travel instead of always going for the absolute lowest price and then bitching about everything then maybe people like this would have a legit gripe about stuff like this. You get what you pay for and we pay for cheap, rough baggage handling. Deal with it and pack appropriately or ship fragile stuff UPS or FedEx.
99.95% of customers’ bags are delivered “on-time and without incident”? Really?
To quote the previous article:
“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.”
Hmmmm… I think Ms. Higgins needs to confer with a calculator prior to making comparison statements
99.95% isn’t 3 to 4 bags out of every 100,000 guests…that’d be 99.9996%
4 bags out of 10,000 is 99.95% (or 40 out of 100,000.) How many passengers per day does United carry? Holy cow that’s a huge number of damaged/lost bags.
I don’t think the number of lost/damaged bags is the issue. It’s how UA decides to resolve the issue when there is loss or damage.
If you come across something like this, a bad experience, and mention that to everyone else through a blog, email or a music video for that matter, why should anyone have any problems with it? We all have our good share of complaints at one point or another. If Mr. Carroll thinks he’s not satisfied with the resolution, it’s his right to be outspoken about it and looks like he is still doing a good job about it. A lesson to every airline including United in particular to be more courteous and careful with their customers and luggage thereof. This is service industry and any haphazard service will get a bad name, no matter how many good things you try to do. Just like all our GM cars.
Richard,
This is not a personal attack on you, but I think your comment is quite contrived and rude. Why doesn’t Mr. Carroll “Get a Life”? Well, I think he is pointing out the YEAR OF HELL he had to go through in order to get this matter resolved. DO YOU, for ONE MOMENT, think United would have settled without this bad press? They ALREADY told him NO over and over. Matter of fact, when they did try to HAPHAZARDLY offer him anything, they tried to nickel and dime the cost. It was ONLY AFTER Mr. Carroll made a video that got 5 million views, did United realize they had a CRISIS on their hands.
So yes, Mr. Carroll has every right to DRILL THIS MATTER HOME. Resolved or not. United WOULD HAVE NEVER DONE RIGHT, had it not been for his diligence and the bad press created by it. Long story short, United deserves everything it gets here AND then some. Maybe, this will teach the airline to properly train it’s personnel, not try to deny responsibility when it is obviously at fault, and give people the run around. How many people WITHOUT the talent did they do this to before Mr. Carroll came along? Now, they are being exposed, and I say let the WHIPPING CONTINUE.
Justin
@Richard,
Normally, I’m right there agreeing that people kvetch too much about little things, but you’re off the mark on this one.
Whether you pay 1st Class prices or sit in the cheap seats, you agree to the same contract of carriage with the airline. They have the responsibility to get you and your baggage safely to the correct location on time, every time. Now that the airlines are charging extra for every bag, I think they are *more* responsible, not less responsible, to get my bags to my destination on time and in one undamaged piece.
In a management seminar I went to a long time ago, it was pointed out that the US Post Office handles millions of pieces of mail every day. For argument’s sake, let’s call it a measly 10 million pieces of mail a day, nationwide. If they were to sit back and accept a 99.99% successful delivery rate, then that would mean 100,000 pieces of mail would be delivered to the wrong destination every day. Fortunately for everyone, the Post Office doesn’t consider that to be an acceptable result and constantly works to improve their process.
The Airlines could learn a lot from the Post Office.
Question for you, Ms. Urbanski – who paid for the repairs to Mr. Carroll’s guitar, Mr. Carroll or United?
Oh, and the music? It’s not a polka.
To be fair, Dave Carroll always said he would make three songs about his experience with United and release them through YouTube. He is doing nothing more than what he said he would do at the outset, though the reaction is a little bigger than he anticipated – he was aiming for one million views by the end of the year, and the first video has already reached 5 million.
He also already named Ms Irlweg in the first song and was up front about the fact that the second song would focus on his dealings with her. This should not come as a surprise. He has said in his video response that Ms Irlweg was a courteous and professional employee and this song states that too – his point is that despite the fact that she was nice, she was forced to implement what he regards as a flawed policy.
I don’t know what United means when they say they’ve worked with him directly to fix it – I understood that they had belatedly offered him compensation, which he had declined. Had he taken the money, it would be a little unfair for him to continue with song 2, but as far as I’m aware that’s not what he’s done.
@Richard Guitars are too big for carry-on – they need to be checked in. He needed the guitar for the concert. And as @Denise above points out, airlines now charge extra for checked-in baggage so they should probably step up their handling procedures, and be a little more helpful when something goes wrong. It’s great that United has responded and incorporated this into their training (and it’s also a good PR damage limitation move for them) but they should’ve got it right in the first place. Carroll is perfectly entitled to continue making his point and if it gives him publicity as a musician then he’s earned it.
Here’s the link to the video statement (made a few days after song one) where Dave Carroll explains how he refused United’s belated offer of compensation and says everyone should give Ms Irlweg break. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_X-Qoh__mw&feature=channel
I have also written about this on my blog – focusing on how social media is a great way to get your complaints heard, when the traditional avenues don’t work. (Though being a musician obviously helps!).
Hey, Ms. Urbanski! Good to see you engaging with the customers! You made a couple of interesting remarks there: “He has made his point… While his anecdotal experience is unfortunate…”
No, I don’t think Dave Carroll has finished making his point yet. He’s got another whole video to go!
And speaking of anecdotes, I’ve got a big sheaf of United drink coupons. They were handed to me by a friend in May 2007 as she was being bumped from her business class seat into coach because United had overbooked. She’d booked business because she wanted to get off a 13 hour flight to Seoul well-rested and ready for a hectic week of business meetings. I guess the flight attendants figured she’d happier about the situation if she were smashed. But Ms. Urbanski, I gotta tell you, giving booze tickets to a Mormon lady won’t improve her mood. Maybe you should add that factoid to United’s training, or write a memo or something.
I look forward to the day United voluntarily provides exemplary service without having to be publicly humiliated first, and really does treat its “customers in a courteous and respectful manner”.
But until then… have you ever heard of Beckett and Ionesco and the Theater of the Absurd? Ever read a Far Side or Bizarro comic, or maybe Kafka’s “The Trial”? They’re all about how incredibly weird and illogical and oppressive the world is… just like your company expecting Dave Carroll to have shown his damaged guitar upon arrival in Omaha to United staff when they, in fact, weren’t actually there because they’d all gone home.
Dealing with United, and really, with most large companies these days, is frequently a horrendous, dehumanizing, soul-crushing experience, and the only way to survive it with your sanity intact, and without committing violence that you might regret later, is with humor.
So Ms. Urbanski, until that glorious day when United planes descend from the skies and bring us all birthday ponies, or at least an acceptable level of customer service, you really need to expect that whenever your company’s employees act like a gaggle of crazy clowns, once in a while some other clown is going to show up and hit them in the face with cream pies. And the audience will just laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Oh, and by the way, Ms. Urbanski. My wife and I just got back from an Alaska cruise on Regent. If you’re not familiar with it, as cruise lines go, Regent ain’t cheap. When I went to book flights, United was the only airline that flew between SFO and the two ends of the cruise, in Anchorage and Vancouver. But I just kept hearing “Some big help you are…” and wondering what would happen if our checked baggage wound up in Moose Jaw. So we didn’t get to use those drink tickets; we went up on Alaska and back on Air Canada.
I did, however, buy Dave Carroll’s album on iTunes. You should get it!
to Caitlin (Roaming Tales) – as a musician myself (who plays guitar), guitars are NOT ALWAYS too big to be put in the overhead compartment. About 15 years ago, I was traveling from BUR to SLC for a convention. I was bringing a guitar with me in a hard shell case. I had checked with the airline to ensure that the overhead compartment was large enough for the guitar and was told it was. When I boarded, the flight attendants told me the guitar wouldn’t fit. After 3 or 4 rounds of “yes it will” and “no it won’t,” I said, Yes it will, and I’ll prove it!” Not only did it fit in, but there was plenty of room to spare. The flight attendants gave me the dirtiest of looks when I proved them wrong.
It all depends on which aircraft you’re flying in as to whether or not a guitar will fit. Oh, and my travel guitar fits in ALL airplanes, so it never gets checked.
“our customers’ bags are delivered on-time and without incident, including instruments that belong to many Grammy award-winning musicians.”
That last part, about them delivering instruments to Grammy winners, almost smacks of a slight to Mr. Carroll not having won a Grammy! Don’t you think it seems a bit pretentious?
If anyone thinks that the airline has been properly chided and that they have learned their lesson, Call me, I have a bridge to sell you. I do not belileve they have taken the matter seriously or they would fix their problems.
What they have is the embarrisment of having their ‘I don’t care” attitude shown on a public forum. If they had done things right the first time, they could have avoided the publicity but, like most multi-billion dollar companies, they don’t care about providing what they promise until they get exposed.
Most big companies including United want us to think that they appreciate it when we point out the error of their ways or a mistake they made. Saying that they are going to use it as a training point is just another way to make you think they actually care.
Mr Elliott does it all the time but without the flair. United needs to sit back, shut up, and fix their problems . Then they can say ‘we have had enough’ As long as Mr Carroll has been factual about the names and events, I think he needs to continue what he is doing. He should also name every employee he talked to. Maybe it will be a lesson to the individual employee that they can not hide behind the phone and if they individual employee did his/her job correctly, then they have nothing to worry about.