I missed the end of the Sprint Cup race yesterday. Not a big deal, I thought, you can read the results in the paper or online. I still have some of my old school media habits and reading the paper with breakfast is one of them, so I was little surprised to see the headline you see pictured below. After all, the only NASCAR driver named Hamilton that I know of was Bobby Hamilton, who passed away in 2007. Had F1’s Lewis Hamilton somehow entered the race and how did I not know that? And why was he driving the 11, which has a regular driver?
None of the above. As it turned out the race winner was Denny Hamlin, who competes every week in the 11 car. The headline was completely wrong. This isn’t a website either, so millions of papers aren’t going to be corrected with the press of a button. Putting aside what must be some editor’s massive embarrassment, there is something any of us in business can learn from this.
Newspapers are supposed to be trusted sources of information. While there is no doubt that the public’s trust in media generally as unbiased factual reporting sources has declined, most mainstream outlets still hold themselves to a higher standard. When mistakes happen – and they do daily – most reputable outlets correct them and call attention to the fact that they have done so, recognizing that they erred in the first place. That’s applicable to any business, as is attention to detail. Someone screwed up badly here. Knowing that it’s generally the editors who write (and certainly approve) the headlines, my money is that the fault lies there. Messing up the big things is usually obvious but it’s the lack of attention to the little things that I think irk consumers even more.
This bad headline is a good reminder. Any business loses trust when they mess up. If we’ve done a good job filling up our karmic bank accounts with our customers, we’ll be fine making these withdrawals for mistakes. Do so on a regular basis, however, and that account becomes overdrawn. That’s when our customers move on. Does that headline make sense?
Consult Keith 