Following on from last week’s article that reported on a study that had found apologising could be more beneficial than compensating customers who felt aggrieved ( it’s here if you missed it), I said I would give some pointers for a good apology.

To start off with I’d like to dispel an apology myth.

Few things are worse than feigned empathy. I have lost track of the number of times I’ve heard customer service staff say, “I do understand how you feel”.

This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding in the nature of human transactions.

When person one is angry, adopting a passive parental style isn’t likely to appease them.

If someone is sad then empathising with them is a good idea. Sadness is an emotion that stems from a past event that can’t be changed.

Anger is a present time emotion.

If you step on my foot my anger will cause me to act in such a way that you will get off my foot quickly, the pain will go away.

Empathy is only likely to antagonise an angry customer.

Here is my five step plan for successful apologies:

1. Identify the customers complaint as quickly as possible.

Why is it important to do this quickly? Because the person complaining hasn’t usually rehearsed their complaint; they are improvising on a theme.

The longer he or she runs the more they are likely to wind themselves up to the point where they hear their own indignation and start to believe the sensational language they are hearing themselves say.

2. Re-frame the problem.

Having identified their problem repeat it back to them succinctly and without excessive drama; don’t repeat their feelings, repeat the facts.

This serves two purposes. Firstly it makes sure you have the right problem identified and secondly it lets the customer hear the problem in objective terms.

3. Match the customer’s energy level.

If you are going to investigate the issue away from the customer then send the signal that this is the moment you are going to start doing something and give the impression that you will continue at that level until you have sorted out the problem.

If you are going to apologise (rather than investigate) do it now and do it with the energy that mirrors (within reason) the customer’s pacing and tone of voice.

Think about it: if you have a problem you feel that no one cares about it (or you) as much as you do. Nothing feels better than thinking that the person you’ve spoken to understands you and nothing signals that more than the feeling that they have been energised by your complaint.

Often the frustration (another dimension to the emotion of anger) that arises in customer complaints stems from the feeling that the company doesn’t care about the issue as much as the customer does. That’s why the customer will say things like, “I won’t use your company again.”

Remember that you can match the energy of an email too, by mirroring the language and phrasing of the original complaint.

4. Make sure you have one explanation.

On its own ‘Sorry’ is a banality. It’s what we’re all told to say by our parents when we’ve messed up, and we soon learn that it can be thrown around without any real personal hardship.

Justifying why something happened has two benefits.

It provides an opportunity to illustrate how the problem is exceptional (unless your explanation is something like ‘this always happens’ in which case you need to understand that apologies are no substitute for decent systems!).

It shows that you care sufficiently to want to know why something went wrong.

Of course, it’s important the justification is such that it sounds like an unfortunate, unpredictable and rare occurrence.

I once bought a cricket bat that, after I’d scored a quick 70, shattered when I hit an off drive.

The manufacturer explained that the bat had almost certainly come from a tree that, unbeknownst to them, had been damaged internally in the severe storms that happened in 1987.

They replaced the bat, but they also ensured I had complete confidence that the company couldn’t have foreseen the failure of the bat and that it was unlikely to happen again.

5. Consider the Opportunity You Have

Most of the time purchases go smoothly and companies only have a fleeting relationship with the customers.

When something goes wrong you have a drama, a story and a different level of interaction.

If your business involves a large number of one-off purchases the best long term value, as the EBay study showed, is to apologise effectively; you save the cost of compensation and you’re more likely to avoid bad feedback.

If your business involves a small number of high value transactions you have the chance to win a customer for life AND create a story about how great your business that the customer might repeat, priming others to be interested in your company. In these cases you need to act in such a way that the covert message is that “we’re mortified it happened and we don’t care what it costs us to make you happy again.”

The tricky bit comes when your business is somewhere between the two and you need to strike a balance between these alternatives.

This is a question of testing different levels of response over a suitable period of time – consider your average purchase frequency to establish how long such a trial would need to run to show an effect – and working out what the optimum formula is for you.

Image courtesy: Roland Tanglao