Daily Archives: April 23, 2010

Tip #146: Learn to apologize

There will be a mistake. A bad one. Customers will be inconvenienced, damaged, frightened, perturbed, and angry.

Say you’re sorry. Then say what happened. Then say you’re sorry again. Save the soul-searching “This has been a bad day,” stuff for your spouse — because it’s been a worse day for many of your customers.

Do not try to publicly minimize the inconvenience your company’s foul-up has caused its customers. You don’t know what it’s like for them. Also, blogs will skewer you.

Over-apologize, over-compensate, over-fix. Do you want to be Toyota?

Check out these apologies.  Both help a bit, but they have flaws that could easily have been avoided. Can you see them?

A long day at McAfee

Blippy And Credit Card Numbers

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