How To Apologize
Some companies just don't know how to say they're sorry when they flub up customer service. Since we know many of them read our blog, here's a primer from wikiHow on how to go about your next mea culpa.
6. Ask if they will give you a chance to make up for what you did wrong. Insist on proving to them that you have learned from your mistake, and that you will take action to change and grow as a result, if they will let you. Make a clear request for forgiveness and wait for their answer. This gives the injured party the well deserved "power" in determining the outcome of the situation."
This, of course, assumes you're interested in keeping them as a customer. If your industry thrives on churn, we guess you'll just have to hope the customer doesn't know about making it more expensive for you to ignore their complaint than to fix it.
How to Apologize [wikiHow]
(Photo: Getty)
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Comments:
In my professional experience, reps are trained to apologize for your experience but specifically not for what the company did. Just like ENM4R said, this limits liability but hopefully (it's hit or miss) makes the customer feel like the company empathizes.
Apologies have lost their meaning in America. Like everyone else has said, apologies are used to shift the blame away from the guilty party. Weak.
Funny thing is that companies don't apologize anymore because it's considered an admission of guilt in court (a tool that sue happy clients use), but now with no apologies issued, people seek vengeance to the fullest extent ('if only they apologized, i wouldn't have sued').
"i certainly do apologize for the inconvenience sir."
we'll, i apologize for telling you to go fuck yourself.
I often feel sorry for them but not for what I had to do...
Worked as a CSR for a couple of years. Never felt sorry for what a company did to customers. Never apologized. But then again, I was always stoned at work. :)
an apology only means something if its sincere. say it, mean it, and be done with it. Once you do that, it's the other party's responsibility to accept or deny, but either way, You did it.
If it's coming from a CSR, it probably doesn't mean jack shit.
Remember folks, we apologized to Japan....
I just always assumed the lack of any recognition of wrongdoing or apology is due to trying to limit liabilities, not because they don't know how...though I doubt they do anyway.