Apologies: The Good, The Bad and the Marketing Ploy

Over the past few weeks, several companies have apologized for issues with their product or service and some of these apologies have stood out in my mind either because they were handled well, handled poorly or because they were just done on purpose to generate more goodwill for the company. So here goes:

The Good Apology - Vimeo

Vimeo is a video sharing company and is very popular with the young adult (18+) set. Videos such as their lip synching have brought Vimeo into the foreground. In early July they upgraded the platform and ran into what appears to be a couple of issues which caused the site to not accept any new videos. Founder Jakob Lodwick began his blog post with the following, "I want to personally apologize for the problems with the site in the past few days, especially with uploads." Simple and to the point.

He explains what happens and concludes with, "Of course, all this talk is meaningless when you can't even upload in the first place, which is why I am deeply sorry that we had difficulties this weekend and part of today." The Vimeo community responds with a variety of comments and the first being, "this post is one example of what makes me love this site." and "Sh** happens. We know you guys are on it... Thanks". Talk to your members, explain the situation and most of them will be ok with it.

The Bad Apology - Monster

Several stories appeared about Monster's user data being obtained by the "baddies" and potentially being used for phishing purposes. Not once in the email did the CEO apologize. Instead the email was basically: there are bad people on the Internet, we will try but really you need to do more yourself to protect yourself. Just because your data was taken doesn't mean Monster is responsible and it may will happen again.

While I know PR worked over this message, it would have been nice for Sal to tell us he apologizes for what happened and these are the steps we put in place to make sure it does not happen again. Oh well, Monster is so yesterday anyway. I have removed my profile from Monster since this happened.

The Marketing Apology - Apple

The minute the news hit the wire that the iPhone dropped by $200 in price, the accountant side of me started to come alive. First, how can you drop the price so quickly without the media thinking you aren't selling as many as you had hoped? Second, what will the Apple loyals who waited for days outside in rain, heat, etc. think? But wait, this is Steve Jobs we are talking about.

I was chatting with a buddy that afternoon and told him that I bet Jobs gives the loyals an iTunes credit for $200 - this way it really costs Jobs nothing and he will get a ton of goodwill out of it. A day later he offers $100 off the Apple store. And again he looks like a champ. The $100 will probably have some stipulations, but even if it doesn't, what does it really cost Apple? Close to nothing and Jobs is again heralded as "the man".

At least he was willing to apologize ending the note with, "We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple."

Conclusion

Even though I have been through the corporate world and have been a part of many major billion dollar deals, I will still never understand why it is so hard for a corporation to say, "I am sorry, we screwed up on x". Being human means making mistakes and in fact, many times I have learned more from my mistakes than my successes.