How do you apologize for causing an outage that crashed millions of computers around the world? With a $10 Uber Eats voucher, apparently.
CrowdStrike has been on the receiving end of a massive amount of attention from the media and the public. This is, of course, after a botched update on their systems caused amassive worldwide IT outage. The company now faces the arduous task of fixing itsdamaged reputationand apologizing to partners and customers.
According to a source who spoke toTechCrunch, the apology to partners took the form of an email offering a $10gift card for Uber Eatsas recompense for: “the additional work that the July 19 incident has caused.”
I was rather skeptical that this wasn’t an elaborate joke, but yes,@CrowdStrikehas apparently emailed its customers & offered a ~$10 UberEats gift card/coupon for any “inconvenience”…and yes, it errors out when one goes to redeem it, saying it has been cancelled 🫠https://t.co/dhiUAfHZjGpic.twitter.com/mjmL2gndxI
The email was sent from an official CrowdStrike email address and carried the name of Daniel Bernard, the Chief Business Officer at CrowdStrike.
“We send our heartfelt thanks and apologies for the inconvenience. To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late-night snack is on us!” the email read, according to a screenshot posted to Twitter/X by another recipient, which has since been removed.
Astonishingly, when people who received the gift card tried to redeem it, they received an error message. Upon investigation of the voucher on the Uber Eats page, a message specified that the gift card “has been canceled by the issuing party and is no longer valid.”
CrowdStrikespokesperson Kevin Benacci confirmed that the company had indeed sent out the gift cards. However, Uber flagged them as fraud due to the high usage rates of the issued vouchers. Benacci said the gesture was meant for: “Our teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation.”
Related:
Efforts to make amends have to start somewhere, but CrowdStrike’s first steps at issuing some kind of apology have clearly not gone to plan.
Rebecca Hills-Duty was a Tech Writer on Dexerto’s UK Team, specializing in PC components, VR, AMD, Nvidia and Intel. She has previously written for UploadVR and The Escapist, hosts a weekly show on RadioSEGA and has an obsession with retro gaming.
