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A
Anonymous
April 17, 2013
Solved

Make me feel better / Share your mistakes

  • April 17, 2013
  • 20 replies
  • 2867 views
To err is human. I just sent every French person in my database a newsletter in Dutch. So I'm a bit agast at my first real mistake in years. I once sent something wrong to 100,000 people, but that was 4 years ago. This one stings.

So share with me. Make me feel better. What have you done?
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We have an account in SFDC that we use to store 'hibernating' accounts that are unassigned. It's called "Bucket". When we first switched to Marketo, we sent an email to ~5000 people in 'the bucket' as part of a bigger email sent to everyone from their assigned lead owner. The emails all came from "Bucket" and were signed with "Best, Bucket". 

Another time, our product team decided to send out an email but set up the wrong links. I didn't test the links because 4 people had already been sent the test email and all signed off, stating they'd tested the links. Once we figured out the links were incorrect, I decided to write a redirect on our server to reroute the link instead of sending a correction email. I made a minor spelling mistake in the redirect and ended up taking down our entire public site for a half hour until I figured out what happened. We sent a correction email afterall. 

If you haven't taken down a site, sent a messed up email, or broken something then you probably haven't been doing this very long. 

20 replies

A
Anonymous
April 17, 2013
Adam, as the saying goes "there are those that have and those that will."  I had to stay up all night rebuilding an SQL database that I corrupted, but that was ages ago.

Just last month, another technology company that uses Marketo sent me and thousands of my US friends an email in Italian , but they quickly followed up with the following apology email with the subject " Our apologies - incorrect (Italian) email received".  The best part is they blamed it on their marketing tool - LOL! Not sure Marketo would appreciate that though ;0)

Please accept our sincere apologies if you have received an email from [xxxxxx] in Italian today, this was in error.

We always endeavour to ensure our email marketing is well segmented, with appropriate content for the region and contact it is intended for. Unfortunately, today a technical glitch in one of our email marketing tools has meant a communication has reached an audience it was not intended for.

We are working to resolve this issue and will ensure that this does not occur again in future.

Once again, many apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Kind regards
 

A
Anonymous
April 17, 2013
Back in 1992 I was writing Oracle PL/SQL triggers to move the business logic from applications to the database.

I was slightly overtime when the CEO said he was going home and I should go too.
I asked if we could stay few minutes more, giving me time to write down the idea that just came to my mind.
Plain denial.

I had no recollection of my solution in the morning. I tried few different ways.
The first test caused an infinite recursive call, growing the database out of control, leading to a severe operating system crash.

It took me two days to rebuild a large server running Sun Solaris and Oracle.
Restoring huge backups added another day or two. 
Getting the lost idea working properly happened more than a week after the incident.
Amy_Lepre
Amy_Lepre
Level 6
April 17, 2013
Adam, I feel your pain. I've been haunted by the "clone monster" a couple times - cloning an email and then not updating all of the links in the new email. The last one I did that on was a a highly anticipated and prominent new product release - the hero image/call to action linked to the previous new product we released. Within minutes I was getting instant messages, emails, and calls from within all levels of the company. Not fun. But definitely a product of being short staffed with too much on my plate - still no excuse. :-)

We send out some sort of correction email whenever we goof. What did you decide to do in this instance?
    A
    Anonymous
    Accepted solution
    April 17, 2013
    We have an account in SFDC that we use to store 'hibernating' accounts that are unassigned. It's called "Bucket". When we first switched to Marketo, we sent an email to ~5000 people in 'the bucket' as part of a bigger email sent to everyone from their assigned lead owner. The emails all came from "Bucket" and were signed with "Best, Bucket". 

    Another time, our product team decided to send out an email but set up the wrong links. I didn't test the links because 4 people had already been sent the test email and all signed off, stating they'd tested the links. Once we figured out the links were incorrect, I decided to write a redirect on our server to reroute the link instead of sending a correction email. I made a minor spelling mistake in the redirect and ended up taking down our entire public site for a half hour until I figured out what happened. We sent a correction email afterall. 

    If you haven't taken down a site, sent a messed up email, or broken something then you probably haven't been doing this very long. 
      A
      Anonymous
      April 17, 2013
      That makes me feel better Adam.  I feel like my nerves are shot from sending emails, feearing that something may be wrong in the email or in the smart list.  Im constantly checking and rechecking and somehow I still miss things but thankfully they are caught by others on my team before the email is sent out. I think I just need to slow down and take it one step at a time.  Im trying so hard not to let anyone down!!
        A
        Anonymous
        April 17, 2013
        Best Bucket really cracked me up. Keep'm coming!
          A
          Anonymous
          April 17, 2013
          OK - I didn't want to admit this, but some of our leads were owned by "Marketo Synch" and were included in a promotional email blast, which wouldn't have been bad, but for that email, we decided to test having the email signed by the lead owner.  A few hours later I was surprised to receive a reply (since my email is associated with the Marketo Synch user that had the salutation "Hi Marketo".  The good news is that the lead was genuinely interested and converted to an Opportunity!  I quickly reassigned all the leads owned by Marketo Synch after that.
          A
          Anonymous
          April 17, 2013
          Funny you should mention this, I messed up the logic in one of the send flows and sent 50,000 users a newsletter in Chinese for a product that they don't subscribe to...

          The good news was that we actually got some sales enquiries from English speakers wanting to learn more about the product (thanks to google translate I suppose) and only 2 unsubscribes.

          Maybe we should all send emails in the incorrect language more often, at least we'll geet some people's attention!
          A
          Anonymous
          April 17, 2013
          I enjoy reading these postings makes me feel better that I am not in this alone.  I sent out just last week the same exact email to everyone again within a few days and was crushed that I missed the step to change the email to the new one.  Those who did not catch the first email did respond with inquiries to the second email.
          A
          Anonymous
          April 17, 2013
          Awesome stories! I feel compelled to air my dirty laundry but my stories are kind of lackluster. It is reassuring to know that everyone has felt that unsettling sting when you know you did something wrong. The funny thing is that, in most cases, we are the only ones who would notice within our organizations that something was wrong. We are a hypercritical bunch and I kind of like that. 

          Obsessive compulsives unite!
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