Taking the pain out of complain!
Good Day Readers:
You may recall in 2009 Halifax-based Sons of Maxwell made this video after several months spent fruitlessly complaining to United Airlines. It immediately went viral. Today it has been viewed by more than 11.5 million people. Here's band leader Dave Carroll's latest project which we think is a great idea! It really demonstrates the power of the social media and the difference one person can make.
Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
__________________________________________________
Victoria Revay
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
TORONTO- Global News caught up with Dave Carroll, the man behind the United Breaks Guitars viral video, to talk about his latest project called Gripevine.com. The site is
a customer service resolution service that uses social media to foster
communication between consumers and brands.
Dave Carroll: Basically the video was released in July of 2009, July 6th to be exact and my life just exploded in all directions the very next day and all these opportunities came in. I received ten thousand emails from customers around the world saying congratulations, but also here is what happened to me. And so today, my life still revolves around music, I’m always a singer songwriter foremost, but I’m also a keynote speaker around the world talking to big companies about customer service or social media or branding. I have also written a book that’ll be published in May 2012 with Hay House called “United Breaks Guitars: the power of one voice in the age of social media.”
GN: What have you been able to leverage from the customers that have reached out to you?
DC: Most of my evidence is anecdotal. I’m not an analyst and there are people who do that really well. I think what makes me attractive as a speaker and a consumer advocate for Gripevine is that I sort of represent the average person who people can relate to having been in customer service on an ongoing basis and never wanting to be another one.
I came across the founders [of Gripevine] and we all share the same passion about customer service. I think we all see it as this idea as the way to resolve customer disputes. We bring the two parties together without having to put people through a customer service maze. On the consumer side, it saves minutes for us that could be better spent playing with our kids or doing anything more fruitful than arguing and for companies, every minute that they don’t spend paying somebody by the hour to figure out what the real problem is, it’s money in their pocket.
GN: How does Gripevine work?
DC: On the consumer side, if you have a problem with company X you go to Gripevine. You create a profile and it only takes a couple of minutes. We encourage creativity, you can use videos if you want and you have unlimited space to tell people what happened. That’s the difference between, say going to Twitter where you’re restricted to 140 characters.
When you’re done, and this is another unique aspect, you state what you want to resolve the gripe. It can be an apology or a refund or you can declare your own or any combination. But when you hit the button, ‘plant your gripe,’ the company will receive a notification that somebody has filed a gripe about them. The company then opens the complaint, they can see what the problem was and get to the bottom of it and know what the customer wants as a resolution so that in itself saves time.
The company then can reply, and probably should, and I say ‘should’ because not all companies are going to embrace social media, but eventually I think all companies will not only respect it, but embrace it. It becomes a brand management tool for companies. The incentive for them is that if they don’t, not only will this person tell everyone they know, but if they don’t resolve the complaint then customers can go and rate the customer service they did or didn’t receive through a customer satisfaction index. Every company will have a page that will grade the level of customer service and that will change over time with the more people that contribute.
GN: How do you ensure that these complaints are legitimate?
DC: This is another important feature of Gripevine on the company side to make sure that they’re not being brand bashed undeservedly. There is a feature called the ‘flag is fake.’ The company has the ability to look at the complaint and if it doesn’t seem right or seems fake an email will be sent to the customer saying your gripe has been flagged as a fake. You can’t be anonymous and say something really negative about the company and that’s one of the protections put in there.
GN: What has been the feedback from companies?
DC: I think companies will totally embrace it. What we offer companies is an enterprise dashboard that acts as sort of a funnel. It’s not just complaints made on Gripevine, but complaints made anywhere on Twitter or Facebook. It monitors all social media, so it’s a catch-all for everything that’s being said about conversation about your company. It makes it manageable. What we understand is that social media is where all customers are going because they get a high satisfaction level and it’s easy to use in terms of communicating with companies. Companies are starting to understand that they need to be where customers are.
GN: How do you monetize this?
DC: It’s free for consumers and always will be. There is a free entry-level for businesses, but the business model relies on subscription and will be sold to companies on the level of service they need from us.
GN: Would you have used Gripevine (if it was available at the time your gripe happened)?
DC: Absolutely. I used everything that I knew about at the time and social media has changed a lot and when “United Breaks Guitars” came out, I think Twitter had been around for a little while but I didn’t have a Twitter account and didn’t know what a tweet was. Still, a lot of people are intimidated about it. I think I would’ve gotten better results because my complaint would have been seen as really justified and different people down the line would have been able to see all the details of my complaint instead of letting it rest on one person who wasn’t empowered and chose not to do something.
GN: Any advice to brands?
DC: Brands today need to understand that a customer has a voice and reasonable people deserve reasonable service. For brands, you should embrace social media and Gripevine because it (good customer service ) saves you money in the long run. There is $83 billion a year wasted in North America alone on customer service expenses that don’t need to happen.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed.
Global News: What has life been like since your video (“United Breaks
Guitars”) went viral?
Dave Carroll: Basically the video was released in July of 2009, July 6th to be exact and my life just exploded in all directions the very next day and all these opportunities came in. I received ten thousand emails from customers around the world saying congratulations, but also here is what happened to me. And so today, my life still revolves around music, I’m always a singer songwriter foremost, but I’m also a keynote speaker around the world talking to big companies about customer service or social media or branding. I have also written a book that’ll be published in May 2012 with Hay House called “United Breaks Guitars: the power of one voice in the age of social media.”
GN: What have you been able to leverage from the customers that have reached out to you?
DC: Most of my evidence is anecdotal. I’m not an analyst and there are people who do that really well. I think what makes me attractive as a speaker and a consumer advocate for Gripevine is that I sort of represent the average person who people can relate to having been in customer service on an ongoing basis and never wanting to be another one.
I came across the founders [of Gripevine] and we all share the same passion about customer service. I think we all see it as this idea as the way to resolve customer disputes. We bring the two parties together without having to put people through a customer service maze. On the consumer side, it saves minutes for us that could be better spent playing with our kids or doing anything more fruitful than arguing and for companies, every minute that they don’t spend paying somebody by the hour to figure out what the real problem is, it’s money in their pocket.
GN: How does Gripevine work?
DC: On the consumer side, if you have a problem with company X you go to Gripevine. You create a profile and it only takes a couple of minutes. We encourage creativity, you can use videos if you want and you have unlimited space to tell people what happened. That’s the difference between, say going to Twitter where you’re restricted to 140 characters.
When you’re done, and this is another unique aspect, you state what you want to resolve the gripe. It can be an apology or a refund or you can declare your own or any combination. But when you hit the button, ‘plant your gripe,’ the company will receive a notification that somebody has filed a gripe about them. The company then opens the complaint, they can see what the problem was and get to the bottom of it and know what the customer wants as a resolution so that in itself saves time.
The company then can reply, and probably should, and I say ‘should’ because not all companies are going to embrace social media, but eventually I think all companies will not only respect it, but embrace it. It becomes a brand management tool for companies. The incentive for them is that if they don’t, not only will this person tell everyone they know, but if they don’t resolve the complaint then customers can go and rate the customer service they did or didn’t receive through a customer satisfaction index. Every company will have a page that will grade the level of customer service and that will change over time with the more people that contribute.
GN: How do you ensure that these complaints are legitimate?
DC: This is another important feature of Gripevine on the company side to make sure that they’re not being brand bashed undeservedly. There is a feature called the ‘flag is fake.’ The company has the ability to look at the complaint and if it doesn’t seem right or seems fake an email will be sent to the customer saying your gripe has been flagged as a fake. You can’t be anonymous and say something really negative about the company and that’s one of the protections put in there.
GN: What has been the feedback from companies?
DC: I think companies will totally embrace it. What we offer companies is an enterprise dashboard that acts as sort of a funnel. It’s not just complaints made on Gripevine, but complaints made anywhere on Twitter or Facebook. It monitors all social media, so it’s a catch-all for everything that’s being said about conversation about your company. It makes it manageable. What we understand is that social media is where all customers are going because they get a high satisfaction level and it’s easy to use in terms of communicating with companies. Companies are starting to understand that they need to be where customers are.
GN: How do you monetize this?
DC: It’s free for consumers and always will be. There is a free entry-level for businesses, but the business model relies on subscription and will be sold to companies on the level of service they need from us.
GN: Would you have used Gripevine (if it was available at the time your gripe happened)?
DC: Absolutely. I used everything that I knew about at the time and social media has changed a lot and when “United Breaks Guitars” came out, I think Twitter had been around for a little while but I didn’t have a Twitter account and didn’t know what a tweet was. Still, a lot of people are intimidated about it. I think I would’ve gotten better results because my complaint would have been seen as really justified and different people down the line would have been able to see all the details of my complaint instead of letting it rest on one person who wasn’t empowered and chose not to do something.
GN: Any advice to brands?
DC: Brands today need to understand that a customer has a voice and reasonable people deserve reasonable service. For brands, you should embrace social media and Gripevine because it (good customer service ) saves you money in the long run. There is $83 billion a year wasted in North America alone on customer service expenses that don’t need to happen.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed.
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 7:00 PM
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