Homer averts nuclear meltdown… sort of

I love this story and I love the unconventional approach of the company at the centre of it even more. This is crisis management 101 with a twist. The story centres around hosting company Dreamhost, who had the mother of all f__k ups this week when they accidentally over-charged their customers to the tune of $7.5 million. Whoa!

Naturally this is a crisis of epic proportions. A quick response was required. Dreamhost attempted to diffuse the situation with a little humour via their blog. Taking inspiration from Homer Simpson, they blamed the error on their fat fingers (in one particularly funny episode Homer was unable to dial for help during a nuclear crisis as his fingers were too fat for the telephone keypad). They also included light hearted references to a previous newsletter, that had joked their bill may inadvertently triple in the future as employees may be too busy looking out the window while working.

The response

Unfortunately for Dreamhost, not all of their customers saw the humourous side. Indeed, they received over 600 responses to their blog post, many of them scathing of the error and the reponse. TechCrunch chimed in to the issue with a post critical of Dreamhost’s action.

But despite the criticism I think Dreamhost handled the situation brilliantly. Perhaps it’s because I love The Simpsons and appreciate good humour. Or perhaps it’s because I have been through exactly the same situation when my company inadvertently over-charged thousands of customers. But I appreciate the courage it took to see the lighter side of the situation. In my eyes they did a lot of things right:

1. They recognised the problem and communicated with their customers swiftly.
2. They explained the source of the problem in detail.
3. They took action to prevent the mistake happening again (and explained that to their customers).

Most importantly however, they maintained their brand voice despite the situation. They even apologised if the tone of the blog was perceived to be a little too light. Dreamhost have always taken a humourous approach to their customer communications. Indeed, recent blog posts have shown a picture of their building on fire and told of a Christmas party where they were too busy playing pool to deal with customer problems. So the Homer Simpson gag certainly wasn’t out of context.

Fortunately for Dreamhost, some of their customers were able to have a chuckle. There were at least as many positive comments left for the company on the blog as negative comments. I can certainly understand why some customers were furious at the situation. But I say bravo to Dreamhost for taking a risk and daring to go against convention.

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Tagsblog etiquette, corporate blog, crisis management, customer communications, Homer Simpson