Angry customer + YouTube = Ruined reputation

What happens when a company fails to quickly respond to a complaint from an employee or customer? In this case, more than three million people got to hear about it — in detail.
Last year, musician Dave Carroll flew United Airlines to Nebraska for a one-week tour. Before liftoff, Carroll — along with several witnesses — saw luggage handlers haphazardly tossing around his $3,500 guitar.
Carroll later found the instrument had been severely damaged. He complained to United repeatedly, but the company refused to take responsibility or pay Carroll for the damage.
After nine months of trying get United’s attention, Carroll took his grievance public. His band wrote a song and filmed a music video titled “United Breaks Guitars,” in which Carroll tells the story of the broken guitar and the airline’s reaction — or lack thereof — to his complaints.
Bad news for United: The band put the video on YouTube where it quickly got the public’s attention. So far, the video has been watched over 3.6 million times and counting.
But Carroll won’t stop there. He claims he told the last United representative he spoke to about his plans for the song — as well as two additional songs and videos the band will produce in the future.
Once the complaint was heard by millions, the airline backtracked and offered Carroll reimbursement. But it’s too late — he refused and said he’s pushing ahead with the next two songs.
Protect your reputation
It’s scary news for companies, but stories like Carroll’s are becoming common. Employees, customers, clients and everyone else have multiple avenues they can use to complain to the public about anything the company does.
What’s it mean to HR? A damaged reputation can deal a big blow your company’s recruiting efforts — especially in a video like Carroll’s, which shows United’s employees as incompetent oafs. How would that look to someone interested in applying for a job?
How to help: Work with managers to stress to employees the importance of customer service in this day and age.
And to keep disgruntled employees from using the Web to vent, encourage managers to listen to complaints and seek out constructive criticism. Often, employees seek alternate ways to complain because they feel they have no other place to go.