You broke it, you should fix it
You’re liable, just admit it
I should’ve flown with someone else
Or gone by car
’Cause United breaks guitars.

These are lines from a song called United Breaks Guitars that Canadian musician Dave Caroll and his band Sons of Maxwell composed and posted on YouTube in 2009 to highlight United Airlines’s poor customer care service.

Caroll was flying United Airlines from Halifax to Nebraska and had checked in his expensive Taylor guitar. Owing to gross negligence by the baggage handlers, Caroll’s guitar was damaged. Despite repeated requests, the airline refused to pay any compensation to him. According to them, the complaint was not lodged within 24 hours of the damage taking place. In retaliation, an aggrieved Caroll wrote a song about his travails with United Airlines, made a music video, and posted it on YouTube. It became an instant hit — 1,50,000 people viewed the video within 24 hours.

The success of the song hit United Airlines’s reputation hard. What’s more, Taylor Guitars presented Caroll with two guitars. Eventually, United Airlines too apologised for its conduct and obtained Caroll’s permission to use the music video for their internal training purposes.

Like Caroll, thousands of people, including Indians, are posting their complaints against manufacturers, service providers and others on social networking sites. And they’re getting their problems redressed much more swiftly than usually possible through traditional routes.

Take Calcutta-based freelance journalist Sudesna Ghosh. She paid Rs 1,500 to an Airtel store in Calcutta to have a broadband connection installed at her home. Not having got the connection within the stipulated time, Ghosh put in repeated complaints with the company’s customer care service, but to no avail. Then she decided to post the complaint on Airtel’s Twitter handle.

After two tweets Ghosh received a call from Airtel’s Delhi office. What Airtel’s Calcutta staff had not told Ghosh was that her house fell outside the telecom service provider’s infrastructure range. The Delhi office instructed the Calcutta branch to refund Ghosh her money, which was done almost immediately.

Supratim Roy too faced similar problems when he took a net connection from Beam Fiber during his stay in Hyderabad. Although the company had promised high-speed connectivity, for most of the day Roy’s Internet connectivity would be next to non-existent. After a number of calls and email exchanges, an exasperated Roy began to post his grievances on Beam Fiber’s Facebook page. The response was very quick and the service provider promised — and delivered — a permanent solution within two weeks.

Indeed, more and more Indians consumers are resorting to social networking sites to get their grievances looked into. Customer Service Barometer, 2012, a survey conducted by American Express, reveals that in India 54 per cent of consumers use social media as a platform to seek responses as opposed to other markets (US 17 per cent and France 10 per cent). Says Pradeep Kapur, senior vice-president, world service India and process excellence of American Express, “The survey also reveals that while 50 per cent customers in India would want to share information about their service experience with a broader audience and 32 per cent vent their frustration with a bad service experience, 40 per cent also applaud a company for a great service experience.”

Many companies are also actively cultivating a social media presence and encouraging customers to send in their feedback there. Deepa Thomas, head, corporate communications, pop culture and partnerships, eBay India, says, “The pages help in customer engagement. It is used both for addressing customer grievances and recommending products. People spend lot of time on Facebook and Twitter. So it is easier for them to post their grievances there.”

Thomas believes that one reason social networking sites are more effective than customer care centres is that they are public forums. “Companies are more concerned about their online reputation as word spreads very fast over the Internet. One complaint, and it would spread like wild fire,” she says.

Saurabh Kumar had posted a complaint about eBay delaying the delivery of the Samsung Galaxy phone that he had bought through the site. After his post, another eBay customer also wrote in to talk about the company’s unsatisfactory customer service. Within four days eBay had resolved both complaints.

Other firms with a social media presence also assert that they tend to redress customer grievances faster when they’re posted on their Facebook page. G.S. Bhalla, CEO of Cocoberry, a frozen yoghurt and dessert chain, says complaints lodged through Cocoberry’s Facebook page are promptly resolved as it reaches the management directly.

Of course, not all companies are equally prompt about looking into complaints even if they are posted on social media. Hyderabad-based V. Haricharan had a miserable experience with a dongle manufactured by a well known brand. Not getting anything near the promised connectivity speed, Haricharan talked about his plight on the company’s social media site. However, the company has not moved on his complaint as yet.

Consumer activists feel that posting one’s grievance on a social networking site is certainly a useful option. Says Ankur Singh, chief executive officer of Akosha, a Delhi-based consumer activists group, “A lot of customers use Facebook and Twitter to seek help. Some problems do get resolved. But many a time they remain unresolved because of a disconnect between the online monitoring team and the customer service officials.”

But with more and more companies recognising the power of the social media and their ability to make or break a brand’s image, consumers would certainly do well to post their grievances online. More often than not, the response could be swift and positive.