We screwed up on feature report of an Ontario home builder. All the ads celebrated the builder’s 25th anniversary, but the builder hasn’t been in business a quarter century. Worse, one of the ads congratulated an entirely different builder!
Our errors are compounded on this file. The builder communicated with me his concerns about a week ago when he noticed the mistakes on the online version of our publication. I relayed an email to the salesperson responsible for the file, but did nothing more. The builder again communicated his concern yesterday in an email to me, and it is only then that I realized that I had mishandled the file.
Who is responsible for the mistake? I’ll take full responsibility. In interviewing the builder for the feature (there isn’t any problem with the actual text of the story, which he approved before publication), I should have noted that we had inaccurate information regarding the business duration and, further, should have seen this error on the final production proofs. Other employees here, without the full knowledge of the situation, would not know the problem, especially since the advertisers signed off the proofs thinking that indeed the message was correct. Furthermore, I failed to respond in an immediate and timely manner when I learned about the mistake initially. Frankly, we couldn’t do much about it right away — the papers had been printed — but my lack of immediate communication and urgency regarding the error does not live up to our business standards and values.
The immediate solution: We’ll republish the feature, with corrected ads, without charge, and apologize to everyone for the inconvenience.
The longer range solution: We want to avoid excessive bureaucracy and process complexity, but I will put on the agenda for our next meeting a review of procedures to see if we can avoid a repeat performance.
So we will grow from the mistake.
