Talk Soup recently ran this ridiculous clip from an obscure morning show, appropriately named The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet.

During a feature on binge drinking, the show abruptly cut to a clip of a cat eating spaghetti. The cat is never mentioned, nor is it included in any part of that show.

Spaghetti Cat became an instant legend, making the rounds on blogs and sparking much speculation. It was only after Spaghetti Cat became famous that the show finally explained Spaghetti Cat’s purpose. It was their new ‘bleep’ feature–appearing in lieu of bad words.

First: Brilliant. Now I and 500,000 other people know about The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet.
Because they didn’t mention Spaghetti Cat, they managed to intrigue the world.

Second: Just like word spread about Spaghetti Cat, it can also spread about your company when problems go unaddressed. Spaghetti Cat reminds us what NOT to do when things go wrong.

Take Apple, a shining example of how a good company can sometimes get it wrong.

Customer service IS marketing. Apple gets that. Except for the times they don’t.

Ever since I got the new iPhone, I can’t stop complaining about it.

Complaining about my iPhone has become a kind of hobby for me, the way Raiders fans love to complain when their favorite team is losing.

The problem is my 3G service causes my phone to become useless. It drops calls for no reason at all, and will suddenly show “No Service” even though I’m in a green coverage zone. A few internet searches revealed I wasn’t not the only one with serious issues.

Months later, Apple still refuses to say a word about it. The AT&T customer service department is no better.

“No Service? Hmmm, well, have you tried resetting it? Are you in one of our coverage areas? Maybe you should replace your phone.”

When Apple finally issued a software fix, they didn’t say what specifically they were solving. And the problem is still only partly fixed. My phone’s 3G service is still so spotty that I keep it turned off to avoid missing calls. Customer communications, Spaghetti-Cat-style.

A better way to deal with this would have been to acknowledge the problem, as Apple did with the MobileMe release. I just got this email a few weeks after that infamous kerfuffle:

“We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users’ patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe’s launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around. Read this article for more details.”

I think most companies would like to respond this way all the time, but fear gets in the way. Fear of admitting they messed up. Fear of disappointing shareholders. Next thing you know, you’re interrupting your morning show with an image of Spaghetti Cat. This is how it all starts.

So, what to do when stuff goes wrong? When something like, say, the equivalent of a cat eating spaghetti appears, how do you handle it? The cat eating spaghetti says to your customers, “something is happening that you do not understand.” Do you stop what you’re doing to explain the cat, or do you soldier on, pretending like nothing ever happened?

Look to your communications to meet the problem head on. Come right out and admit it. Yes, there’s a spaghetti cat in the room. It’s not just you. No, you’re not crazy. Yes, we’re working on fixing it. Honesty works, honestly. Then, when you fix it, let them know you fixed it. Or, if you only partially fixed it, say so, plainly. Mark Silver had a great post on what to say when you’ve messed up: “Handling complaints without making things worse.”

This is how you deal with a Spaghetti Cat in the room. One Spaghetti Cat at a time.