Customer Care – the Key to Success

It was a big mistake when United Airlines showed little interest when one of their passengers complained that their guitar had been damaged in transit.

Dave Carroll is a professional musician and he was devastated to find that when he collected his Taylor acoustic guitar after his flight into Chicago’s O’Hare airport, it had been broken so he took up the matter with United Airlines. They just were not interested. Frustrated at the lack of customer service, their irresponsible attitude and complete disinterest, Dave decided to write a song about his plight.

So Dave composed a song and called it United Breaks Guitars recorded it and then posted it on YouTube. In the first 10 days it had 3.5 million hits and it has been a PR disaster for the airline. Their share price has plunged no less than 10% wiping $180m off the company’s value!

This story made it on to BBC Breakfast this morning and no doubt many other channels – TV and Radio. The story will be retold in training sessions across the globe to reinforce the point that customer service is key.

We take complaints very, very seriously because, thankfully, it is relatively rare that our company receives any. When we do the complaint will be thoroughly investigated, resolved and we will ensure that the person complaining is more than satisfied in the end. I have been known to ring the person personally. It is worth the effort just to hear their shock when they answer the phone! ‘ Hello,’ I say, ‘This is Rosemary Conley and I’m ringing about ...’. The call is met is silence at the other end and then a tentative voice says – ‘Who is it? Did you say you were from Rosemary Conley’s?’. ‘It is Rosemary herself’ I say and then we have a lovely chat. When I explain that I take any complaints very seriously because I want all of our customers to be really happy with our products and services, they know I mean it. The situation is always very easily and satisfactorily resolved.

We work on the principle that we would rather you told ten of your friends that you received excellent customer service from us rather than you tell 100 folk that our service was rubbish. It’s a pity United Airlines didn’t follow the same principles.