02 · CRISIS MANAGEMENT
18 hours to resolve a full-order cancellation
CONTEXT
In June 2025, a co-branded group-buying campaign was planned and executed involving Intel, Itsub, and AliExpress. Itsub is a tech YouTuber with 2.8M+ subscribers — a high-opportunity, high-risk partnership where any negative experience for followers could directly translate into brand damage.
PROBLEM
At midnight on the final day of the one-week campaign, all orders were converted to a full cancellation. The cause was a human error: the 'cancel all orders if sales target is not met' option had been left active during event setup. As the cancellation triggered, viewer complaints began flooding the comments section of the creator's channel.
MY ROLE
Contribution: ~90%. Led the full response — incident recognition, internal reporting, solution design, stakeholder coordination, direct user communication, and drafting and approving the public notice. Final decisions were made with approval from the Korea General Manager and team lead.
APPROACH
Three tracks were executed in parallel immediately upon identifying the incident.
Internal Reporting and Decision-Making
At 1 AM, the situation was reported to the team lead, department head, and Korea GM. The creator was also informed in real time. The resolution direction converged quickly under a single principle: customer experience first — all affected buyers would be given the opportunity to repurchase at a price lower than the original.
Emergency Budget Approval and Re-setup
The original payment discount budget had expired with the event's close. An emergency budget request was submitted, and re-setup began immediately upon approval.
Direct User Communication
A dedicated inquiry inbox was opened for direct responses. Comments on the YouTube video were addressed one by one. Responsibility was clearly attributed to AliExpress to prevent backlash from being directed toward the creator.
The public notice was drafted, refined with GPT assistance, and submitted for urgent review to Legal and PR teams — who responded despite it being the weekend. Final approval was obtained before publishing.
RESULT
From incident recognition to final public notice: under 18 hours. The same type of incident typically takes 7–14 days to resolve internally. The creator responded positively to the speed of response and the measures taken to protect followers. The campaign concluded without lasting brand damage.
LESSON
Human error is an inevitable byproduct of complex manual setup processes. Following this incident, a double-check protocol for critical option values was introduced to the event setup workflow.
Response speed was fast, but approximately 30 minutes were spent assessing the situation alone before reporting. The more efficient sequence would have been to report immediately and conduct the assessment in parallel.