The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success, 3rd Edition

Word of Mouth at the Speed of Light

The statistic that “An angry customer will tell up to 20 other people about a bad experience . . .,” that’s face to face. With the use of social media like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, those 20 people can quickly become 20,000 or even 200,000!

Here’s an example about Dave Carroll, a country and western singer and songwriter who had an unpleasant experience with United Airlines and used a video on YouTube to “tell a few people.” At the time this chapter was written, Carroll’s telling of his story to “a few people” through social media had grown to 8,380,000!

On March 31, 2008, Dave Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell, were flying on United Airlines from Nova Scotia to Nebraska when just after landing in Chicago O’Hare, a passenger sitting behind Carroll noticed the baggage handlers throwing his guitar around the tarmac. Carroll immediately notified three flight attendants, but “was met with indifference.” When Carroll arrived in Omaha, he found his $3,500 710 Taylor acoustic guitar smashed.

Over the next several months, Carroll called United representatives in Chicago and India (go figure), who told Carroll that United wasn’t responsible and would do nothing to help Carroll. Carroll spent $1,200 to repair his guitar, bringing it only “to a state that it plays well but has lost much of what made it special.”

The last straw for Carroll was when a United representative, Ms. Irlweg, sent Carroll an e-mail denying Carroll his claim because he didn’t ...