$180 Million Customer Service Foul-Up

How Social Media Amplifies Customer Complaints and Business Risks

It used to be that an angry customer would tell an average of 8-16 people about the poor service at that organization. What would the fallout be if an unhappy customer told 3 million? It happened for real several years ago when Dave Carroll got fed up because United Airlines broke his guitar in baggage and refused to replace it. He wrote a song, ‘United Breaks Guitars‘ and posted it on YouTube. Within 10 days the video had gone viral with over 3 million views. United’s share value dropped by $180 million. That’s an expensive guitar!

Savvy managers recognize that they are expected to manage risk. It does indeed cost money to properly train employees on recovering customer goodwill after a mistake. That investment, however, is a proverbial drop-in-the-bucket compared to the risk of not training. Today’s universe of social media means one disgruntled customer can do serious financial damage.

What’s your plan this year to give your team a customer service tune-up? If you’d like some options, let’s have a brief zoom chat. Then if it looks like a possible fit, I’ll put something in writing for you to consider for 2025.