Coupons gone wrong

Seth Godin chimed in today on how to handle internet coupons gone wrong.

Here’s the story line. Starbucks asked employees to forward email based coupons to their friends and family. The promotion grew bigger than Starbucks intended and they pulled the plug just six days later. It was intended to last five weeks.
Seth’s three easy to digest rules:

1. Don’t expect that anything on the Internet won’t get out of hand.
2. If you made a promise, better figure out a way to keep it.
3. Have a policy about internet coupons before someone invents a fake one.

The second rule is especially important to Brand Image. Any time a company fails to meet their customer’s expectation it tarnishes the company’s brand.