One of the most impactful aspects of business is customer service. It’s a topic with depth, and therefore may be unpacked further in later episodes. In today’s episode, David leads with a story he recently shared with his kids that relates to this topic.

If you go to YouTube and search “United Breaks Guitars,” you’ll come across a music video about a musician who checks his guitar with his other luggage on a United flight. Once he arrives at his destination, he realizes his guitar is broken. But this isn’t just a music video—it’s the musician recounting what happened to him in real life. Of course, he brought this to the attention of United.

Unfortunately for the company, they declined to fix it. Instead, the musician decided to write a song and create a video about his experience. He put it up on YouTube, and it went viral. It was picked up by big publications, and eventually the story also ended up in mainstream media.

It has been viewed over 21 million times. If you watch it, that number will grow a bit more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

This highlights the fact that as a customer service representative, the most important thing you can do is step into the shoes of the customer on behalf of the company. Situations like this come up and can’t be treated with a cookie-cutter approach. Every unique issue should be resolved as such.

As a business owner, it’s important to instill a sense of autonomy in your representatives and empower them to make the right decisions when you’re not there. When it comes to customer service, the best approach you can take is to acknowledge when a wrong has been done and make it your mission to put it right.