James Carroll at “Ceridian”:http://www.ceridian.ca/ sent us a quick note today:
bq. Don’t know if you’ve seen the e-mail blast(s) from marketingprofs.com. I liked their apology, plus it makes me feel good that not everyone’s perfect!
It appears that most (all?) of “MarketingProfs”:http://www.marketingprofs.com/ subscribers received numerous messages, all with slightly different offers or messaging.
Here’s what my inbox looked like earlier today:
James is right, the apology they sent out as soon as they realized what had happened was a good one.
It probably wasn’t the nicest message to have to write, but Sharon Hudson did the write thing and handled it professionally and in a warm, personal manner.
I think Sharon might have to add a comment to our “Question of the Day – Your Biggest E-marketing doh?”:http://www.onedegree.ca/2006/08/21/qotd-your-biggest-emarketing-doh discussion. 🙂
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“but Sharon Hudson did the write thing and handled it professionally and in a warm, personal manner.”
You guys trying to be clever here? : )
“You guys trying to be clever here? : )”
Ha! I wish I could be that clever on purpose. Thanks for righting in.
Thanks for the post Ken. This is an excellent example of disaster recovery. Sharon’s e-mail was honest, simple, sincere and best of all, it didn’t sound like it was written by a marketer. I think their subscribers will appreciate this apology and will probably end up feeling better about Marketingprofs than before they ‘goofed’. This reminds me of something I read in a 37 signals book:
“A customer study at a global hotel chain demonstrated the importance of providing effortless recoveries. Guests who experienced a problem that was quickly and politely resolved rated the hotel service HIGHER than guests who had no problems at all. And guests with happy resolution of their hassle were MORE LIKELY to recommend the hotel than trouble-free guests.”
Thanks so much for your kind words about how we handled our email debacle yesterday at MarketingProfs. Mistakes happen, and this one was certainly a doozy. The (mostly) positive responses we received after sending the apology note helped me feel a little better about the world in general, and MarketingProfs members specifically. One sympathetic member who wrote to me directly yesterday said, “You’re dealing with MARKETING professionals, for goodness’ sake….we’ve all done this or something like it before!” That, at least, made me smile. Thanks again.
Hi all,
I agree that MarketingProfs handled the situation well. I thought you might be interested in this one, as well. I received an email from Kiehl’s earlier today asking for feedback via an online survey. I guess there were some issues with the survey and this was sent to their distribution list as an apology later in the day.
“Dear Valued Kiehl’s Customer,
Some of you have experienced difficulty completing the Kiehl’s online survey. We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please be assured that we have fixed the problem and the survey is now in working order, able to accept your contact information. If you experience any further problems filling out this survey, please contact Matchstick at 416.530.8000 ext. 300.
Best Regards,
Your friends at Kiehl’s”
Instead of being irked by the errors and shaking my head at the companies involved, a simple apology allowed me to shrug it off and get on with my day. A good lesson for all us marketers, I think. The only thing I would do differently if I were Kiehl’s? Add the survey link again in the apology email, so people don’t have to go searching for it. Just a thought. 🙂
-Jyotika