Gripevine’s Dave Carroll Tackles Customer Service Resolution After United Broke His Guitar

It’s an interesting story.

One day, Dave Carroll was taking a flight with his band-mates on United Airlines. When he landed at his destination, he noticed that United staff were throwing his $3,500 Taylor guitar around, and ultimately, damaging it pretty badly.

When United did nothing to help, Carroll took matters into his own hands with the help of a little video sharing site called YouTube.

His music video, “United Breaks Guitars,” took off like a rocket, and after realizing the power of social media, he joined up with his other co-founders to build Gripevine.

The service basically connects customers with businesses when they have customer service issues. Businesses can sign up to hear complaints and resolve them in an open, transparent fashion. Not only does the consumer get a chance to voice their issue to the company and the world, but the company gets the chance to make it up to the user publicly.

It’s a win-win.