Snafus Happen – acknowledge the error and move on

Yesterday I received an email invitation to an online conference from ISYS Search Software. Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the company's email marketing system and this is what the first line of the email I received contained:

Hello $FIRSTNAME$,

The rest of the email seemed to be just fine. I had a small chuckle and moved on to my next email. Glitches happen. They’ve happened in marketing programs I’ve run. Everyone faces a situation like this sooner or later.

So I was a bit surprised to receive another email just 45 minutes later from Dave Haucke, Global Marketing Manager of ISYS Search Software apologizing for the error. Dave’s message reads:

Subject: My bad! re: ISYS 7 launch

Hey David,

My apologies for the SNAFU with the salutation from
my last email.  I'd blame it on Microsoft Access or our
email marketing application, but you and I both know
it was an operator error.

Hope you can make the ISYS 7 launch conference.
More details to come.

Best,
Dave Haucke
ISYS Search Software

I paused, and thought that this was a very professional way to deal with an awkward and embarrassing situation. Many people would have ignored the issue. Or they would have sent a “sorry” message blaming it on technology.

This apology was done using a bit of humor and to top it off, it also contained another pitch to attend the online conference. Well done!