Little did Dave Carroll know in 2008 what was about to happen to his precious guitar. The musician checked it into a United Airlines flight --it's hard to bring it as a carry-on, he later explained -- and discovered his guitar was damaged when he arrived. He also had overheard somebody remarking that the baggage handlers were tossing guitars around while loading the plane.
He spent months negotiating for compensation with the airline to no success, at which point he launched a video on YouTube called "United Breaks Guitars." At a time when social media was just starting to take hold, his song became an international sensation. It sparked calls from the media, guitar donations and most importantly for Carroll, an apology and compensation from United.
The story could have ended there, but Carroll decided from his experience that other customers need help in advocating to break through the sometimes difficult-to-penetrate walls of companies when things go wrong. This sparked Carroll and others to found Gripevine, a website that aims to give consumers and businesses a neutral playing field for complaints.
Gripevine provides a platform for customers to explain what went wrong, and for companies to respond with their explanations. Once the issue reaches a certain point, you can comment and let the company know how well it did. If you need a little more support for your buddies, the site also makes it easy to share the story on social media.
Even the largest companies are now subscribers of the service, including Coca-Cola, Walgreens, Hewlett-Packard and Sprint, just to name a few. And in the spirit of being fair, even Gripevine has its own spot where you can submit complaints about Gripevine itself! The company promises to respond right away.
"You can use Gripevine to tell your story," the website says. "If you had a bad experience with a company and couldn't get them to make it right, you can add a little leverage by publishing your story here. We'll ensure that it gets to the right people -- the decision makers at the company who have the power to set things right. Our automated response technology will notify the company and invite them to the site to review your gripe, giving you both a second opportunity to work towards a positive resolution."
In a 2012 interview shortly after Gripevine launched, Carroll told Techvibes that his company had already helped out some Canadian businesses. This included a Toronto restaurant, Fresh, where a customer said he had experienced an order mix-up. "The company took action and resolved the issue with the customer offline," Carroll said at the time. "The satisfied customer then declared the issue resolved on Gripevine for everyone to see."
There are benefits for the business as well, Gripevine says on its website. The "civilized environment" of its website allows for more productive conversations than what might be explained through the frustration of social media. Indeed, many companies have been using the service lately, with recent resolved conversations including Rogers, The Brick and Google.
It all goes to show you that there are two ways of looking at a problem: treating it as a one-off situation, or looking at how to fix the wider system so more problems don't happen in the future. Gripevine is an example of the latter. What everyday situations have you experienced that could be resolved for more people, with a little thought and the right platform in which to do it?
Top image: Sons of Maxwell/YouTube
