Google just did something most cable companies wouldn't even think of

Google Fiber earlier this week experienced an unfortunately-timed service outage in Kansas City - right as the city's home team Kansas City Royals were facing off against the New York Mets in Game 1 of the World Series.

Fox, the network hosting the event, claims some responsibility for the events: The company posted a statement Tuesday night confirming a "rare electronics failure" that knocked out power in its truck. The Fox broadcast experienced numerous other technical difficulties.

But Google also claimed responsibility for its part. The company apologized in a tweet and released a statement to Wired:

On Tuesday night, some Google Fiber customers in Kansas City experienced a service outage. With the World Series playing, we know this was an important night for Kansas Citians, and we're sorry for the interruption. our team worked quickly to fix the issue, restoring service for most people within the hour. All service was restored by 10:15 p.m. local time.

And then the company went one step further: On Wednesday night, Google emailed apology letters to every single Google Fiber customer in its Kansas City market. Tyler Thompson, a Google Fiber customer, posted the apology letter on the PCMech blog - in short, it was a sincerely-worded letter from Google Fiber's head of business operations that promised "two days of service credited your next monthly bill."

Here's the full apology letter:

I just wanted to reach out to say how much we regret yesterday's service outage. It occurred at an important moment for Kansas City: Game 1 of the World Series.

Many people on our local team are from Kansas City, and we love our Royals. We let you down, and we let our community down. We will do better.

Our first priority was to get you back online as quickly as possible. And we're taking immediate steps to ensure this type of issue doesn't happen again. We know you put your trust in us to be there when you need us.

Although we can't bring back the moments you missed, we would like to offer you two days of service credited to your next monthly bill.

If you have questions, please contact our support team.

Kelly Carnago?

Head of Google Fiber Business Operations, Kansas City

This is a great example of excellent customer service from Google - something we'd love to see more of from other internet service providers. (We don't need to go into the process it can take to convince a traditional cable company to give you credit for an outage).

Google's approach to this service issue also extends to its other new wireless service project, Project Fi, where you only pay for the data you actually use (on top of the flat $20/month rate). It looks like the company is applying this philosophy to Fiber, which is great for customers in those lucky markets.