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.