In the same way that great customer service can drive sales and increase customer gratitude, the same can be true of poor customer service. Unfortunately, destroying a reputation only takes seconds, whereas building one up can take years or decades. United Airlines is finding that out first hand this week, due to a PR nightmare created by the band “Sons of Maxwell”.

After Dave Carroll’s $3,500 guitar was reportedly broken on a flight to Nebraska, he asked to be compensated for the damage done. After months of communications, he vowed to write three songs documenting the issues and try to spread the word over the internet. On Monday he posted the first song on Youtube, titled “United Breaks Guitars”. The song has received over 150,000 views to date (Edit: Youtube Video), and it looks like United is getting the message. Their twitter stream is full of apologies such as:

@tinamack This has struck a chord w/ us and we’ve contacted him directly to make it right.

 

@JRGarcia It is excellent and that is why we would like to use it for training purposes so everyone receives better service from us.

It looks like United is doing what they can to rectify this situation, but it might be too little, too late, as often times it’s the first news that people remember (not the subsequent fix). This just goes to show again how the viral nature of the internet can either be a valuable resource for a marketer or customer service team, or a tool of destruction. Live by the sword, die by the sword.