Reviewer John Cowans: John lives in
retirement in Chester, NS ,where he has been an Instructor with
Seniors College Association of Nova Scotia.
He is currently working on a personal memoir, Other People’s Children, and his first poetry collection, Hope.
Author: Dave Carroll
Publisher: Hay House
ISBN: 978-1-4019-3793-5
Author: Dave Carroll
Publisher: Hay House
ISBN: 978-1-4019-3793-5
These days I suppose
everyone has his own airline horror story. I know that I have.
Complaints lodged; complaints ignored. Grrrr! Anyway, who am I
compared to the massive size and influence of a giant airline, and
considering the millions of air miles travelled without a mishap, my
problem, they say, is simply statistically insignificant. I used to
be a matter of ‘statistical insignificance. That is, until Dave
Carroll came along.
By the way, who is this Dave Carroll? Dave Carroll is a singer-songwriter from Halifax, Canada. He had a bad airline experience. United Airlines broke his guitar, and ignored him when he tried to get them to replace it or just repair it, after all it was his livelihood. They regarded him as statistically insignificant until, in 2009, he wrote a song called ‘United Breaks Guitars‘ and then made a YouTube music video about the poor customer service he received. I watched the video again the other day.
I was the 12,442, 664th person to do so! So, Dave’s career
blossomed and he is now a highly-sought-after performer, content
creator, author, keynote speaker, and consumer advocate. And because
of his efforts United Airlines learned a lesson or two, and all of
us, ‘insignificant’ consumers of all kinds of products and
services, are better off too. This is Dave’s story.
United
Breaks Guitars: The Power on One Voice in the Age of Social Media is
a well organized, highly readable, amusing and instructive book about
how one person made a difference in a world where many feel
overwhelmed whenever unfair confrontation is thrust upon them. First
Dave tells us what happened to him and how he decided to handle the
situation. To make United airlines pay some attention Dave Carroll
used good humour and music to gather to his defense not just people
whose complaints had been ignored, but all people who might need
support when confronted with seemingly impossible barriers.
As a
result of his stand against United Airlines and the army of
supporters that he drew to him, United Airlines stock declined 10%,
shedding $180 million in value. We live in the Age of Social Media
which means that if we are going to succeed as business enterprises
we cannot afford to think that some of our customers are unimportant.
Dave Carroll believes: “...that companies need to hold themselves
to a higher standard - a standard no different from the one I hold
for myself and that many other companies also embrace. When
performing, I don’t strive to play 95% of my songs well. I expect
to nail all of them....” He goes on to explain that for all those
who deal with the public, “ .... in the age of social media, your
brand is nothing more than the sum of the conversations about it.”
Finally, Dave tells us about Richard Hue, a fellow Canadian, who
has developed a customer service resolution platform called
Gripevine.com. Richard and his partner Chris Caple invited Dave to
join them because they believe that Gripevine.com will become the
leading destination for resolving customer complaints in the coming
years.
United Breaks Guitars: The Power on One Voice in the Age
of Social Media is a fascinating book that should be part of
everyone’s permanent collection.