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United Breaks Guitars Case Study

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Submitted By Supreme1988
Words 1053
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Yohance Patterson
Case Study 3
Professor George Scott
11/07/14

United Breaks Guitars

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.” – Warren Buffet (cite)
Introduction
David Carroll a musician and his band “Sons of Maxwell” were flying back from their hometown of Halifax, Canada from doing a week worth of shows in Omaha, Nebraska on March 31, 2008. On aboard a connector flight in Chicago at O’Hara international airport, David noticed a baggage claim handler mishandle his $3,500 guitar. David expressed to the flight agent about the incident but she responded by saying “Don’t talk to me. Talk to the lead agent outside.” Each person David tried to speak with about the incident passed him on to another person who couldn’t help him, David’s guitar ended up being broken and in need of repair.
David request was for United Airlines to take the responsibility for the damages of the guitar by reimbursing the $1200 dollars that it cost to repair the guitar as well as $1200 worth of flight vouchers. After 7 months since the incident happen David was contacted by a rep from United Airline through email saying that she was sorry about what happened to the guitar, but that standard airline policy held that claims be made within 24 hours of damage and since he didn’t get his guitar inspected by United his claim was denied. David said “the system is designed to frustrate affected customers into giving up their claims and United is very good at it.” In his final exchange with the representative, he told her that he would be writing three songs with video about United Airlines and sharing them on YouTube. His goal was to get one million hits in one year, within a month David’s videos got over 4 million views and response from other media outlets.
Impact of Social Media
The traditional public

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