Customer Service

Whether via blog, Web site, or news reports, consumers have a means to get back at companies for dishing out poor service


Forget the sternly worded complaint letter, that’s so 20th century. These days, companies can pay a much bigger price for their customer service slip-ups. Thanks to the proliferation of blogs and online video sites like YouTube, a global audience is at the fingertips of every ticked-off consumer. Companies continue to learn the hard way that poor-customer- service complaints can make their way from niche Web sites to network television before there’s time to say “full refund.”

Even companies with stellar service records can take a high-profile tumble, as JetBlue painfully discovered just this month.

Here’s a look at some major customer service gaffes:

Customer Service


Bloomberg News

JetBlue’s Blues
JetBlue, the airline with a once squeaky-clean customer-service record, fell hard this Valentine’s Day when an ice storm left passengers stranded on runways in New York for up to ten hours. But the downward spiral didn’t stop there: JetBlue had to cancel hundreds of flights over the next several days to ease its backlog. Intense media coverage combined with passenger outrage has left the company scrambling to offer full refunds, free flights, promises of major operational changes, and even a passenger bill of rights.

JetBlue joins the dubious ranks of other airline mishaps, including a legendary 1999 Northwest Airlines flight when passengers were trapped on board for seven hours after landing nearly a day late in Detroit. Recently American Airlines made headlines when hundreds of passengers were kept on planes at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport after New Year’s weekend thunderstorms hovered longer than expected.



Customer Service

Bloomberg News

Dell’s Hell
When media critic Jeff Jarvis bought a Dell laptop in 2005, he says the computer was a dud right out of the box. Even the service plan he purchased couldn’t remedy the problem. Frustrated, Jarvis took to the blogosphere, detailing his grievances against Dell on his Web site, BuzzMachine. com. Jarvis’s first complaint began directly with “Dell lies,” and it inspired more than 100 readers to share their stories of similar Dell hardships.

Jarvis went on to chronicle his trials with Dell, and his now famous blog post, “Dell Hell,” was born. The stories spread to other Web forums and the mainstream media, creating a major fiasco for the company. Since then, Dell has launched its own blog as a forum to learn from the experiences of its customers.


Customer Service


Bloomberg News

Comcast Couched
Cable-operator Comcast was left apologizing for what it termed an “unsatisfactory customer experience.” In June, 2006, Brian Finkelstein filmed a Comcast employee as he dozed on Finkelstein’s couch. Finkelstein edited his footage to just under a minute, peppered it with complaints about Comcast’s service, set the images to the Eels song, “I Need Some Sleep,” and uploaded it to YouTube. Nine days later, the video had been viewed more than half a million times.

The real kicker was that the technician had fallen asleep while on hold with his own company’s customer-service department. Comcast, which has more than 21 million U.S. subscribers, announced that it did not condone the behavior that appears on the video. The company fired the technician.


Customer Service



Doubletree’s Trouble
In November 2001, Tom Farmer arrived at the Doubletree Club Hotel Houston, a subsidiary of Hilton, to find that his “guaranteed” room had long since been handed over to another guest. Confronted with the hotel’s unapologetic night clerk, Farmer and a colleague were sent packing to less desirable accommodations elsewhere. The upset led to the creation of a biting, 17-slide PowerPoint presentation detailing Farmer’s poor service experience.

Complete with data points, quotations, and a graph of lost revenue, the creators sent their “graphic complaint” off to hotel management and select friends. But the presentation -- “Yours Is A Very Bad Hotel” -- was forwarded so widely that it eventually earned a permanent spot on the urban-legend Web site, Snopes.com.


Customer Service

Getty Images

AOL: You’ve Got a Cancellation
It took 21 minutes for Vincent Ferrari to cancel his AOL membership over the phone last year. Unfortunately for AOL, those 21 minutes were the beginning of Ferrari’s 15 minutes of fame. Ferrari had digitally recorded his cancellation call, during which he was confronted by the bizarre efforts of a service representative working in AOL’s “retention queue.”

The rep, identified as John, repeatedly implored Ferrari to keep the account, despite the customer’s blunt insistence that AOL “cancel the account.” The audio file was posted on Ferrari’s blog, insignificantthough ts.com, and picked up by the national media. The incident led AOL to outline new procedures for handling cancellation requests, and to John’s dismissal.



Customer Service

Getty Images

iPod Out of Juice
New York City filmmakers Casey Neistat and his brother Van took Apple to task for choosing design over function, and profit over good customer service. In September 2003, when the battery on Casey’s iPod failed to hold its charge for longer than an hour, the brothers created a three-minute movie highlighting the iPod’s often-fatal battery flaw, and launching iPodsDirtySecret. com.

The film features an audio recording of a customer service rep suggesting that Neistat buy a new iPod as, at the time, replacement of the lithium-based battery was only offered at a prohibitive cost. The bad publicity couldn’t put much of a dent in the widespread popularity of the music player, but Apple now has a battery replacement and extended warranty program for the iPod.