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.