You know what my job is? Oh, sure, there’s a lot of stuff about “building relationships” and “communication” and “facilitation” and “sanity checking,” but really, my job usually involves apologizing.
I’ve apologized for things I did, things I was about to do, things I didn’t do, and even things I tried desperately to avert by methods including begging, pleading, and screaming. I’ve apologized for wrongdoing, attempted rightdoing that went horribly awry, and things I would do again without a second thought. I’ve apologized for how I came across, how the listener thought I came across, for how I didn’t come across but the listener thought I secretly meant to come across, and for being across the hall from someone who did not wash his hands after he peed.
None of this has injured me in the slightest. It hasn’t cost me anything, either. It is part of the job, like correcting release copy and putting on pants when I go to meetings.
It’s not just the Ocean Marketing hilarity that’s got me thinking. I’ve been seeing more and more protests at stores that happen because of the following:
1. Some ignorant employee violates their own company policy and orders a customer to stop doing something the employee doesn’t like. Breastfeeding, being black, whatever.
2. Customer turns out to be educated, aware of policy and/or the law. Complains to management. Gets runaround.
3. Complains to HQ. Gets runaround.
4. Rallies internet friends and stages protest… to demand support for something the company already supports.
5. Company gains reputation for being against something they support.
The accompanying article (here’s the one I read today) usually makes two things clear – one, the originally offended person never heard “I’m sorry” from anyone, and two, the flack in charge of providing quotes didn’t say “I’m sorry,” either.
Maybe these people just don’t understand the central component of the public spokesperson’s job. I hereby will do my holiday service and provide a helpful how-to guide for public facing employees:
HOW TO APOLOGIZE TO AN ANGRY CUSTOMER
Step one: Listen to angry customer until customer has run out of words.
Pro-tip: You need to actually listen, because you will need to remember what he said for step two.
Step two: Say to the customer, “Please correct me if I have misunderstood you. You are angry because X, Y, and Z.”
Pro-tip: Repeat steps one and two if necessary.
Step three: Pause for one moment and think about how you would feel if you were the customer.
Step four: Apologize, using the active voice. “I am sorry [this] happened.”
Pro-tip: You have to actually mean it. You have to be sorry this human being in front of you is upset. Do you have to be sorry for what happened? Well, if you/your employer was at fault, yes. But the minimum you should be able to muster up is genuine regret that this person is angry, and a desire to make them happy again. (Edit to add: I use my regret over the customer’s distress as a shortcut to the right frame of mind if the cause of their upset doesn’t get me there. Thanks to Sidereal for helping me clarify my thinking.) If you cannot muster up that much, you are in the wrong damned job.
Step five: If someone from the media calls for comments, say “I apologized to the customer and we will work hard to avoid XYZ in the future.”
That’s…kind of all there is to it. I’ve been apologizing professionally for more than ten years now. I admit the part about being sincere is what keeps this from being “the easiest job in the history of mankind,” but even for the empathy-challenged, you can usually figure it out within a couple months. There are about a billion PR/Marketing niches that don’t require even that much, so it’s not like a failure to care is going to limit your career in any way.
But if you’re going to sit on the front line, you should probably figure out how to give a green-assed damn about your own customers. Probably. What do I know.
However, I think there’s an even nicer way to think about it.
Outbound communications take many forms, and there are loads of sole proprietorships out there, especially for game industry projects (like the guy who tried to bully game review sites for down-ranking Duke Nukem Forever this summer.) Many are run by well-connected, self-promoting boisterous personalities that excel at drumming up hype.
Those people are salesmen.
Don’t make salesmen do customer service.
They are in fact two different skill sets. It’s rare to find both in the same person.
Huge fan of your work (apologizing and otherwise) and very supportive of the sentiments here. .
HOWEVER, regarding step 4, ‘I’m sorry you’re upset’ is the canonical non-apology apology. It communicates that you don’t actually regret any of your (or your company’s) actions, but that the complainant is probably just easily upsettable or confused and that’s unfortunate. If you really feel you or your organization didn’t do anything wrong, that’s fine. Then don’t apologize. At the very least don’t give a non-apology apology and then pretend in follow-ups or press releases that you did in fact apologize.
But you or your organization almost certainly did do something wrong (at the very least in communicating with the customer), so genuinely apologize for that. Don’t ‘apologize’ that they’re angry without actually taking responsibility for anything.
At what point does the salesman have a responsibility to be aware that he is a dick and should leave the soft skill things to other people? Or at least set a timer to think twice before hitting send?
And look at Target, in the article I linked. Not one person could muster up “I’m sorry we pissed you off”?
This is not rocket surgery.
Sidereal: I agree with you 100%. That’s why the part in quotes is “I’m sorry this happened.” (“This” being whatever the customer is angry about.) “I’m sorry you’re upset” may be internal monologue, but actually saying it is a bullshit non-apology guaranteed to enrage the listener.
Basic decency demands that you be sorry this person is upset, and if you can feel sorry, be sorry about that much, the sincerity of your apology will come through, whatever your words are.
I say this as someone who regularly had to apologize for things I either didn’t do or wasn’t sorry about. But the basic requirement of my job is that I be the human face of the company and offer a sincere apology to someone who is upset. I was outlining the shortcut I use to get to that place of sincerity, because the sincerity matters more than quite literally everything else, IMO.
I think the theme is “sincerity,” or some such.
You don’t wear pants on days without meetings?
Would you?
Spot on, Sanya.
And the benefits of doing it properly extend far beyond “doing it right”, but so few seem to realize this. It’s a shame
It really is amazing to me how many companies and people in customer support/relations positions either don’t know how to apologize, or won’t apologize.
And oh! You nailed it with “active voice.” Nothing makes me begin defcon meltdown more than the dreaded “I’m sorry if you were…” Politicians love this one (“I’m sorry if anyone was offended at my use of the term “darkies”…), but more customer service people than I care to remember have used them too. NO! BAD! If your apology includes the word “if,” then you are doing it wrong.
And it really is amazing how often and how far an apology will go to setting things straight. Maybe people don’t apologize because of the urban legend that if you apologize, then that person can now sue you for the entire net worth of your company. I guess. I don’t know.
Specifically regarding Ocean Marketing or whatever they’re calling themselves, honest to gawd I wouldn’t buy one of those controllers even if I were in the market for one, and even if it included hand jobs for life.
Can we all agree, however, that he wasn’t an actual PR/communications person? People like him give the rest of us comm people – usually people who understand customer service, the basic rules of grammar, and the effects a few little words can have on a company – a really bad rap. It’s such an extreme violation of basic, common sense that it’s funny yeah, but as professionals it should make us all cringe, because there are companies out there that hire people like him. Crazy that there are other people like him, and for some reason, they do tend to show up more in the games/entertainment industry. I do love that he thought his ‘e-mail conversation’ would remain private. Privacy. In the wwebsite as on internets world? ha ha ha…
“At what point does the salesman have a responsibility to be aware that he is a dick and should leave the soft skill things to other people?”
I gather you haven’t seen “Glengarry Glen Ross.” Salesmen are supposed to be dicks.
The fault for a business enterprise is leaving all outbound communications to one person without regular checks and balances. But, if this happened all the time, sole proprietorship “PR” outfits wouldn’t get hired.
Er, rather, if companies actually cared about outbound communications, they wouldn’t outsource it to single proprietorships. Everyone needs an editor.
I think Sanya understates the ability to truly apologize here. It really does take some empathy and skill to effectively apologize for wrongdoing that you personally had no part in. Most people lack the skill needed to take responsibility for their own actions, let alone those of a company. Especially when those others have done something completely idiotic. Sadly I have no ‘magic dust’ to enable this skill, but knowing how to hire someone who does can put an organization far and away above the norm in this socially media-aware age. I am happy to consult on how to do this.
I question whether a company actually supports a particular policy if management and executive leadership (e.g. HQ) give the run around when the policy is violated.
@cuppajo:
“Most people lack the skill needed to take responsibility for their own actions, let alone those of a company.”
Really? I don’t mean that sarcastically, I mean…”really?”
Maybe I’m just a rare bird then. I don’t even work in customer/community service, and in fact I’d probably put a bullet in my head if I did. I like people, I just don’t like interfacing /with/ people. But as much as I don’t like dealing with people, I have no problem apologizing to people when it’s warranted (and knowing when to err on the side of caution). Especially if my company owes them, at the very least, an apology.
If Sanya’s understating anything at all, I believe it’s in framing this (i.e. the Ocean Marketing thing) as a customer service issue. It wasn’t. It was about a sociopath who had zero business interfacing with a house plant, let alone another human being. If it’s true that the sociopath has been relieved of his duties, then the real customer service issue is just beginning. How the company responds to this debacle will tell us just how important customer service is to them.
Cuppa: Well, I understate it in part because I can DO it, despite my own not-insubstantial ego/raft of opinions. If I can do it in spite of these handicaps and no formal training or understanding beyond a vague sense of the Golden Rule, a Genuine Professional with a degree in this sort of nonsense should be able to pull it off OR MOVE THE HELL ALONG.
Matt: Eeeeeeeh, yes and no. The company giving the runaround is often doing so for legal reasons. That is one of the many reasons for people like me to exist. The human face who is personally sorry usually stops this sort of thing before it becomes a legal matter. People who’ve gotten apologies rarely sue.
Mox: I’ve met plenty of very successful marketing people who sound just like this fellow. It’s just that they know not to talk that way in front of the customers. My personal opinion is that the contempt eventually bleeds through, but I have also been told I am wrong. Eh. Being wrong is no more fatal than apologizing.
Great post. The Ocean Marketing incident was an absolute disaster that didn’t have to happen had the guy behind the keyboard on the front lines had even a small measure of empathy for what the customer was feeling. I haven’t been in the community management business for nearly as long as some folks, but I feel like the Ocean Marketing fellow made such obvious mistakes that I honestly wondered whether it wasn’t some elaborate troll.
I find myself apologising on a daily basis for the ineptitude of other staff members in my current job so I know your pain. If it was a small company then once I’ve had my ear pinged solidly for 20 minutes I would LOVE to be able to walk over to the other side of the office and slap someone upside the head for what they did, but I can’t. My company has around 3,000 customer facing staff directly employed and approx. another 1,000 employed through outsourcers. Sorry, ‘Partner sites’ as we have to call them now.
I do sometimes get into trouble for not ‘showing empathy’ or not apologising. my response is usually ‘But the company hasn’t done anything wrong and neither have I?’ There seems to be a growing trend in many customer service jobs where you have to apologise for everything. The customer just wants information? ‘I’m sorry you can’t find that information without phoning me’. Sorry but WTF? That’s why they called. To get the information from the source!
Your steps to resolution are fantastic as well.
I also saw something that i thought was a good attitude to have, especially for a large company. ‘Customer Service is not a department, it’s an attitude’ It’s just a shame my current employers seem to be neglecting their staff in the favour of the customers and staff morale is in the toilet atm!
WRT Ocean marketing. What a douche!
Years of customer service has taught me that what pushes most people over the edge is the feeling they have not been heard. Step 1 is crucial. Let them blow their steam all over you.
You can always say you’re sorry. Even if it secretly means “I am sincerely sorry that I had to take the brunt of that.” You can always say you’re sorry, it costs you nothing. You are not admitting guilt. Always apologize, especially if you’re right.
Always be sincere, and sincerely care for the plight of the customer even if it’s stupid, not your fault, and can’t be fixed. Imagine how you’d feel.
I once helped a student who, despite everyone’s best intentions, had gotten the total runaround trying to accomplish a necessary but odd bureaucratic task in the University system. I knew where they needed to go. I first apologized for the sheer ridiculousness of the whole mess, then I said: “I know where you need to be. If I’m wrong, please come right back to me, and I’ll find out where you need to be, even if I have to call every office in the directory.” They came back after their task was accomplished, thanked me and said “You really would have called every office, wouldn’t you.” I replied that yes, I really would have, if it came to it.
That’s customer service.
Oh, something I despise: SC reps who apologize by script. Um, we can tell.
Your “Step 3″ is an excellent tip that everyone should reflect on when trying to “work” with and angry customer because customers don’t really want an apology from any company.
Customers want someone who can understand the problem and then provide solutions or options for correcting the issue. At that point the company has an opportunity to retain the customer for future business.
And if the customer is wrong? I have no problem apologizing if we did something wrong, but what if the customer is in the wrong? Do you apologize because they screwed up? I think people found out that companies really don’t care if your satisfied or not. All companies care about now, is making sure you come back. People found out that just by complaining they get “free stuff”. I know people that haven’t paid for a meal/movies in years just by complaining to corporate about anything. Hell I wrote to Ray-Ban because they didn’t make aviator teardrop sunglasses small enough to fit my face. They sent me 5 different pairs, FREE! Where does it end? When does the customer start taking responsibility for their own stupidity?
It doesn’t matter if the customer is wrong. If you are in customer service or sales your job is to empathize with them and diffuse the bad situation. If you are the kind of person that worries about whether or not the customer is right then you are in the wrong job.
those companies have figured out it’s cheaper to buy off a few abusers of the system than to have some counterproductive facebook fight over a percieved injustice.
A business’s job is to get new customers and keep their existing customers. Nothing more nothing less.