Well, the first thing is to prioritize handling of the situation. Deal with it now. Secondly admitting failure and being open about it is crucial.

Earlier I wrote about SAS having some problems with an online campaign, and I wanted to add the last bit of communication from SAS to the story. After my (and others) bad experience, I received an apologizing email. The mail stated that they had been examining the logfiles of the (slooow) server, and they could see that I had initiated the campaign survey, but had not finished (presumably because of the server problems). In an attempt to make things good again, they assured that the problems had been fixed (which it seemed) and they had also doubled my chances in the price-give-away.

In conclusion, I believe that SAS actually did make the best of a bad thing. The customers affected were (almost) promptly identified, and contacted with an excuse and with a “token of appreciation”. Well done. It seems that you care a bit more about your customers than other large corporations.

A couple of days ago, I received a mailinglist newsletter from SAS, asking me to participate in a questionaire with the title “what does time mean to you”. Among other things, the survey showcased the various special benefits that SAS offers in order to reduce wasted time while travelling.

So I entered the site and began answering the questions. The only problem was that the server was so bogged down that it took more than a minute after you answered, before the next question would show up.

“What a waste of time”, I thought – and dug up the e-mail address of the VP of marketing in SAS Denmark.

The next day, I got the response from SAS that they certainly did not intend to waste their customers time. Excuses (“we did actually do a load test”) and promises of fixing the issue took up the biggest part of the email.

I just checked – and the server is now responding pretty fast – as you would expect in the first place. The only problem is that the really busy people (that the campaign probably was directed towards) has long forgotten that site that didn’t work. The email is in deleted items. Their input is lost. You fail.

Once you have learned from your mistake you may try again.