DENVER -- The days of spending hours on the phone with customer service may be over. For those who need to resolve issues with customer service, there may be a faster, more technologically savvy way to get help.

"It's traditional to call customer service over the phone if you're having issues," said Gabe Lee, of Boulder. "I'm going to go the next level and I'm going to share it with the world by the only way I know how, and that's social media."

Lee told 7News he has spent more than 8 1/2 hours over the last six months calling customer service about dropped cell phone calls. He has recorded four hours of those phone calls. He plans on creating a viral video for anyone online to see his plight. Lee provided 7News a sample of his recordings.

Customer Service: "Since the Second, you've had 19 dropped calls with this service."

Gabe: "And is that counting last night and today?"

Customer Service: "That was, yes."

Gabe: "You have been taking $116 from me and giving me maybe 50 percent of what I've been paying for."

In another call, you hear the connection fail between Lee and the customer service representative.

Customer Service: "Hello, are you still there?"

Gabe: "Yup, I'm here. Hello? Ah, you're *#$&ing kidding me!"

"I'm going to make a killer video with all my experiences and share that online," said Lee.

7News: "What do you hope to get out of that?"

"I hope to get some recognition from AT&T honestly. Hopefully, they'll look at it and they'll say 'wait a minute, we just can't push our customers around. If they have issues we have to deal with it,'" said Lee.

Taking complaints online has a history of working. The most famous example may be musician Dave Carroll. In July, he posted a video online entitled "United Breaks Guitars." That video has been clicked on more than 7.5 million times. Carroll claimed that in 2008, United Airlines baggage handlers mishandled and broke his guitar while loading it onto a plane. After nine months of dealing with customer service by phone, he wrote a song. According to Carroll, United offered to resolve his issue after the video was posted online. Carroll refused, instead telling United to donate their offer to charity. In August, Carroll posted a second video, "United Breaks Guitars 2". His second post hasn't been as popular, but still has more than 800,000 views. Carroll has promised one more video to be released sometime this month.

View United Airlines response to "United Breaks Guitars"

7News found another online example that could cause a double-take. The complaint against AT&T looks like an AT&T advertisement. It has been viewed more than 83,000 times. (*Warning: Explicit Language)

A third example shows just how much time customers will put into their online complaints. Justin Callaway believed his stereo speaker exploded because of the "tick tick tick" interference sound sometimes heard when cell phones are near electronics. He illustrated his frustration with former cell phone provider "Cingular" in a video seen nearly 56,000 times.

Complaints don't have to be sophisticated, but bland complaints don't get viewed as often. A basic search online revealed many videos of customers speaking to web cameras or cell phone cameras. Those videos received only a fraction of the online audience.

"With my recordings, hopefully I can make something that the community, the social media community, Colorado, the World, can see and hopefully AT&T will listen, finally," said Lee. "I've been talking with AT&T for the last six months, a total amount of time about eight-and-a-half hours. I have it all either recorded or documented. It's unacceptable that you should have a problem that spans that amount of time."

7News: "Are you interested in resolving your problem or having it seen by the most people?"

"I think at this point, I've given AT&T enough time to resolve my problem. At this point, I want to be seen by as many people as possible to get my point across," said Lee.

View AT&T response to Gabe Lee and social media complaints

AT&T has provided Lee some compensation. Lee told 7News AT&T contacted Apple to replace his iPhone. AT&T also replaced his sim card and credited 50 percent off his bill for one month. Lee says he only wanted no more dropped calls. Now he says he wants more compensation.

"I would want 50 percent off of my bill from the time that I called them till now, and up from now until it's fixed. I don't want more than what I pay for, but I don't want to pay for more than what I get," said Lee. "I wasn't asking for anything for months, I was just asking for the service to be improved. I said, 'I am not happy with my service. I can't pay this much for 50 percent of my service.'"

HOW TO USE THE WEB TO GET CUSTOMER SERVICE

Lee pointed out that when calling customer service, there is sometimes a warning that the call may be recorded and monitored. Lee says he wanted to level the playing field.

"I needed some proof that I wasn't just a customer, an irate customer that's calling AT&T over and over, making up stories," said Lee. "I recorded the conversations because I wanted some sort of proof that I'm trying to go through all the steps necessary to get it resolved."

Getting a complaint ready for online doesn't have to be complicated. Lee used a flip cam and basic earphones to record video and audio of his calls.

"I can simply place the speaker or the ear bud right to the speaker and I get great audio," said Lee. "That's going to make the difference. That's what's going to be noticed by people. That's what I can put out online through social media, and that's what's going to be picked up by people and actually looked at."

USING TWITTER TO RESOLVE ISSUES

Twitter is also becoming an innovative resource for resolving customer complaints.

Follow Marshall Zelinger on Twitter at "7Marshall".

Many companies now monitor Twitter for keywords, in case complaints are surfacing among tweets. Comcast is one company that has its own Twitter account -- "Comcastcares" -- and actively searches out customer complaints and tries to resolve them online.

Zach Knaus showed 7News his Twitter history with Home Depot. Last summer, he tweeted a friend about a customer service issue with Home Depot. Within three hours, someone from a Home Depot Twitter account contacted Knaus to help solve his issue.

"I was actually talking to another Twitter user and they saw my tweet," wrote Knaus. "They were helpful and helped me take the next steps to get it fixed."

Ryan Amirault also wrote 7News about using Twitter to get help more efficiently. "I have found Twitter to be a great way to reach companies and also on the flip side it is a great way for a company to find feedback from their customers," wrote Amirault. Before you spend your time dialing and waiting to speak to the next customer service representative, consider your options online.

DISH Network contacted 7News after seeing a preview of our story. Representatives want to alert customers of the DISH Network twitter page.

BE TRUTHFUL OR BEWARE

When trying to resolve a customer service complaint online, the truth should stand out as much as the method. Posting negligent and/or untruthful comments to get a complaint watched by millions, could be more trouble than it's worth. Companies could sue for defamation. Even if it's just an opinion, unless that opinion is based on factual information, there could be legal ramifications.

Online Defamation Law

Cyberlibel

UNITED AIRLINES RESPONSE TO "UNITED BREAKS GUITARS"

"This struck a chord with us. We had conversations with one another to make what happened right, and at his request, made a donation to a charity that provides music education to underprivileged children. While we mutually agree that this should have been fixed much sooner, this video provides United with a unique learning opportunity that we are using for training purposes to ensure all customers receive better service from us.

Of course any bag lost or damaged is one too many and the fact is this was an anomaly, as more than 99.96 percent of our customers' bags are delivered on-time and with no damage whatsoever. Since he has traveled with us, we have made some significant improvements as we placed #1 among our peers in fewest customer complaints, according to the Department of Transportation's latest report.

In our business, how we conduct ourselves is important, and all of us understand that treating each other and our customers in a courteous and respectful manner is a vital part of running a good airline."

Robin Urbanski United Airlines

Additional Facts

When the claim was received, the standard 24 hours timeframe had passed. The 24-hour guideline is in place to ensure we can promptly identify and make amends for damage that happened while bags were in our care, while also protecting the company from fraud.

We have since provided our agents with a better [sic] to be more responsive to special situations that may arise, while also protecting us from the fraud that we see.

Revised our policy so that guitars ARE NOT counted toward ones carry on allotment and made this policy more clear on our web site so customers can use and reference it when needed.

Here is the report referenced above, page 36. Delta had 95 complaints, American had 67 and United had 35.

Questions Often Asked

What happened here?

We made a number of mistakes that, when added together, made terrific fodder for a video. But essentially Canadian musician Dave Carroll filed a claim with us when he discovered damage to his guitar after he flew from Halifax through Chicago to his gig in Omaha. When the claim was received, the standard 24 hours timeframe had passed. The 24-hour guideline is in place to ensure we can promptly identify and make amends for damage that happened while bags were in our care, while also protecting the company from fraud.

If we had a chance to review this case, how would we have handled it differently?

We could have done a better job helping him report the damage when he first noticed it being mishandled, or immediately when it was discovered, which would have enabled the claim to be resolved promptly. That's the premise of how we will use this incident for training...that it's all of our jobs to ensure our guests are taken care of.

How, exactly, would a video like this be incorporated into training?

It will provide all of us -- regardless of where we work or in which department -- with an example of how we can be more empathetic to our guests when situations suggest we should. In our business, how we conduct ourselves is important, and our employees understand that treating each other and our guests in a courteous and respectful manner is a vital part of running a good airline.

Are the agents handling claims empowered to use their discretion when dealing with grievances such as this? Have you changed your processes since this video was released?

Our agents are empowered to escalate serious concerns that they hear from our guests. We have since provided them with a better way to do that to ensure we can be more responsive to special situations that may arise, while also protecting us from the fraud that we see.

Back To Top

AT&T RESPONSE TO GABE LEE COMPLAINTS

AT&T is proud to be a customer care leader on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These social media vehicles are helping us meet our goal of providing excellent customer service and satisfying our customers. We care about what our customers have to say and we're getting great feedback from our efforts in the social media space.

On the AT&T Facebook page we created a place for discussion and providing answers. When customers ask us a question on the page, we respond. Fans can use the page to get the scoop on new devices, learn about the latest network expansions or ask AT&T Customer Care a question.

Help from AT&T is also just a tweet away. Customer care representatives can be reached on Twitter

On our AT&T Customer Care social media team YouTube channel we are building a collection of videos that can assist our customers in finding support for their products and services with AT&T.

We expect to invest more than $18 billion in our network this year and we're working hard to provide a great network experience for our customers. In this case, we've been working with the customer to address his concerns. We recently reached out to the customer seeking more information and so far he has not responded.

Back To Top