Memo to Intuit PR

Listening to this piece on NPR yesterday, I had one reaction to Intuit’s spokesperson’s claims that Intuit’s problem of handling tax filings on the evening of 4/17 was the fault, in the words of Harry Pforzheimer, of “late” filers and “procrastinators”.

Hey, Intuit: here’s a few other words I’d use: “customers” and “on time”. As in, “customers who are filing their taxes on time.”

I was just about to post this when I saw this wire piece in which Intuit CEO Steve Bennett had this to say, one day after Harry Pforzheimer’s comments:

“We deeply regret the frustration and anxiety this caused our customers,” said Steve Bennett, president and chief executive officer of Intuit. “This is not the experience customers have come to expect from Intuit. It’s not acceptable to us, and we will do right by our customers who were impacted by this delay.”

Someone figured out that the first attempt at blaming the customers wasn’t the right approach. Note how he refers to “our customers”, lays the blame for the delay squarely at Intuit’s feet, and owns the resolution? Good for them.