Passengers: Your Captain Has Screwed Up

You probably know the approach pattern at your home airport very well. So what would you think if your plane were about to touch down when it suddenly jerked skyward, overshot the runway and headed out toward the ocean? Even non-nervous flyers would know something was wrong. Near collision? Problem with the running gear? Inexperienced pilot who needs a do-over?


A MarketingProfs team member experienced this scenario not long ago, and sat patiently waiting for an explanation from the flight deck. Anything at all, if only to confirm that everything was under control. But nada, zip, zilch. It took a full ten minutes—after circling around in a bizarre pattern—for the pilot to give the non-explanation that the plane would be on the ground in a few minutes. Our colleague left the flight seriously pissed off at the lack of communication.

It's never fun to deliver bad news. But in a post at his blog, Tom Peters emphatically underscores the need to keep clients and stakeholders fully informed of "a delay (wee or grand) or glitch (wee or grand)." It's better for everyone to know what's going on, and what you're doing about it, than to leave them seething in the dark.

"Make the call," he writes. "And if you have … let someone know about a glitch … call 'em again to update the status of the fix, or relay the sad but honest news that the fix is more complex than first imagined." It's Marketing Inspiration we can all use.