It has been 9 years since the release of the now-infamous song “United Breaks Guitars.” The protest song detailed the customer experience nightmare singer-songwriter Dave Carrol experienced after United Airlines broke his guitar during a flight and refused to compensate him for it. The accompanying music video, uploaded onto YouTube in July 2009, amassed more than 150,000 views in one day and resulted in a public relations nightmare for the airline. In an increasingly digital age, poor customer service experiences are often posted online, on review sites such as Yelp or on social media sites, particularly Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes,...
One of the worst customer experiences my family and I had was with a roadside assistance company a few years ago. We were pulling our camper to Charleston for a family vacation when two of the camper tires blew and we had to pull over on the side of the highway. My dad called our roadside assistance service to tow our camper to the nearest RV service center. After ending the call, my dad informed us that they were working on getting someone who could tow the camper and they should be there in about an hour. An hour passed...
Several recent interactions with businesses have left me wondering if they care about about their customers. In one interaction, I called to arrange to have my deck refinished. I got a recorded message that they were busy with other customers, leave a message, and they would get back to me. It’s been a week and they have not called me back. In a second interaction, I called to check into my current pest control service and was 12th in the queue. I hung up, found their web form and sent my questions. It has been 2 weeks and no one...
