Sometimes, "sorry" is the best medicine

If you've ever fought with a friend, you know how hard it is to make amends without one of you saying "I'm sorry."

Why should crisis communications be any different? Occasionally bad blood fizzles out, but companies in crisis usually have to be vindicated by the news media or make some sort of apology or announcement of regret before they can rebuild relationships with consumers.

When Fox had Hulu take down 3 seasons of the hit show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," Hulu experienced some immediate backlash. Perhaps the negative response wouldn't have been so strong if it weren't for the popularity of the show.

But was the removal of the show really even Hulu's fault? Fox owns the rights to "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," and rights ownership issues are dangerous territory - Hulu had no choice but to anger consumers.

But Hulu consumers weren't just angry that the content was removed - they were angry that it was removed with no notice. Recognizing the PR crisis at hand, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar issued a heartfelt apology and returned the shows to the site with permission from FX, giving users an additional two weeks before removing the episodes.

On the social news Web site Reddit, responses to Kilar's statement are varied and interesting. Most believe this is exactly how a company should behave in a crisis situation:

"If every company out there had this level of respect for their customers, there would be FAR FEWER incidents of deleting users' data.

Companies should regularly be grovelling at the feet of their customers. They exist solely thanks to the willing contributions of the customers, and without the customers, they are nothing.

And it's only recently that companies have really forgotten that."
-innocentbystander

While some users are baffled by the apology's intensity:

"This is a wildly excessive apology for such an event. It's not as if they deleted users' data or cancelled their vacations."
-acontorer

But the vast majority of Redditors agreed that the apology was appropriate, which shows how far an apology can go in winning back the trust of the public. As Kilar himself said, "Customer trust is hard won, easily lost."