In 2009, Dave Carroll (a professional musician from Nova Scotia, Canada) engaged a massive worldwide audience to share his customer service story about United Airlines. Using YouTube.com to deliver his message, he wrote and performed a song that has made an impact.  Some people estimate 100 million people saw his video.

You see, United Airline broke his $3500 guitar then rejected his request that they pay for it. But after his video went viral United changed their corporate mind and offered to reimburse him.  (You can see the video below.)

Here’s why so many companies have a customer retention problem. Ironically, this customer service example is from a Los Angeles Times article about how airline customer service has improved during the recession.

United Airlines lost a customer’s bag that had medication in it. So the customer had to replace the medication for the duration of their stay, costing them $750. This was three times what United Airline’s policy allowed so they were only reimbursed $250. The airline clerk who handled this apparently

Here is your Daily Dose of Amazing Service:

Get back to the basics

And here are some additional thoughts on this topic…

I read a news item recently that quoted well-known venture capitalist, Anthony Lee on the state of customer service in his industry. He compared them to United Airlines, which says plenty. More interesting was how Lee suggested they improve:

J.D. Power and Associates has released their 2009 North America Airline Satisfaction Study. Here’s how the major US airlines rank: