Why is Saying Sorry So Hard?
The Victorian prime minister Benjamin Disraeli popularised the idea you should ‘never explain, never apologise’. He has much to answer for as others followed diligently in his footsteps.
For example, PG Wodehouse wrote famously that 'It is a good rule in life never to apologise. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.'
Yet “sorry” remains highly prevalent in English conversation and you might reasonably expect it to be common currency amongst responsible companies.
The willingness of organisations to pick up the phone and say sorry seems rare, if not almost unheard of. Yet this is often all it takes to make those who have been badly treated feel better about their experience.
With the implementation of the recent Compensation Act 2006, saying sorry by companies is now more respectable, with less opportunity to “take a mean advantage” of the apologiser. Legally saying sorry no longer implies what happened or didn’t happen was all your fault. Nor is it an admission of neglecting your statutory duties.
The inability by many companies to communicate regret parallels a growing tendency to resort to e-mail to offer apologies when people want to patch up rows. According to a recent study, nearly a third of those in the UK said they have a disagreement they wanted reconciled - 13.8 million rows nationwide. And rather than speaking face to face or on the phone, 41 per cent of Brits say they prefer to fire off an e-mail. A mere one in five pick up the phone to talk and one in ten sends a text message.
Failure to say sorry is the silent killer, because only about 4% of dissatisfied customers actually complain. The rest quietly go off to the competition. In fact, saying sorry can be positively good for business. Stenna Line gave its staff power to spend up to £1000 to solve customer problems and now gets three compliments for each complaint.
In its early start up days when Maynard Leigh got something wrong with a client, we offered the entire group of people involved free tickets for a west end show of their choice. Result? The group subsequently sent an ecstatic letter not only forgiving the cock up, but saying they’d had a wonderful time, had gelled as team and were looking forward to working with us again.
Sometimes we even wistfully joke that if only we had a few more mistakes we could show our clients how truly wonderful we are! Turning “sorry” into a positive customer benefit is about seeing an opportunity. It starts with a willingness to admit you got it wrong, then being creative about “what will make it better for the client or customer?”
Nor does saying sorry always mean a need to offer financial compensation. For example, when Domestic and General got an insurance policy arrangement wrong it sent a contrite letter to the client admitting things had gone awry and asking for feedback on how they might avoid the problem next time. Nothing more but it was enough.
On the other hand it may prove relatively inexpensive to offer something tangible. For example Love Films, found itself behind in mailing out DVDs to its customers due to a recent merger, sent everyone apologies and said it would try to make it up them by sending an additional rental free of charge.
NHS staff have been hopeless at apologising because they feared disciplinary action or litigation. Recent new guidelines now stress saying sorry is not an admission of liability. The Being Open policy gives step-by-step advice on how to deal with patients who have been unintentionally harmed. Top of the list of remedial actions is a simple apology.
'Our core ambition is to change the nature of the NHS - to say that when things go wrong we can be open and say sorry,' says Professor Sir John Lilleyman, medical director of the National Patient Safety Agency, who issued the guidance.
Sometimes though, the potential solution can prove challenging. One high street bank started sending flowers to customers whenever it got their accounts wrong. Hearing this, a director of another leading bank admitted ruefully that for his bank the error rate would mean there would not be enough florists in the entire country to cope.
Deciding on “what will make it better” depends on the particular situation, which is why it takes creative thinking about what best to do.
Occasionally though, people confuse corporate philanthropy and corporate social responsibility – a confusion that has corrupted both. In April this year for example, Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group in South Korea apologized for an escalating corruption scandal. As a gesture of contrition the family running the conglomerate said it donate about $1 billion for social welfare programs.
Shortly afterwards, the U.S. investment fund Lone Star also apologized for allegations of embezzlement and other controversies surrounding its multibillion-dollar investments in South Korea. Lone Star said it was donating several billion pounds in an apparent move to assuage widespread public sentiment against the excess profit it stood to make by unloading its stake in Korea Exchange Bank. But such twisted philanthropy did not fool customers or clients and helped re-enforce the old idea that saying sorry is a negative thing to do.
A study by Aston University found that a majority of CEOs think complaining customers are a nuisance but there is also a danger of missing just how many unhappy ones there are out there. On US bank began monitoring the Internet for example and discovered over 10,000 negative comments filed about it and new customers were being warned off.
Finally, no matter how sincerely offered, sorry may simply not be enough because the other party wants something different. For sorry turns out to a bit more complicated that it might appear. It has a variety of different possible meanings:
- Express regret—we are sorry.
- Accept responsibility—we were wrong
- Want to make good—what can we do to make it right?
- Repent—we will really try not to do that again.
- Request forgiveness—will you please forgive us? .
To be effective, sorry may have to be expressed in all five ways before it really lands with those it is aimed at, which is why just saying sorry can sometimes still fail to put things right.
Ground rules for saying sorry
“I was walking by a drycleaner at 3a.m. and there was a sign that said: Sorry, we're closed. You don't have to be sorry. It's 3a.m. and you’re a drycleaner. It would be ridiculous for me to expect you to be open. I'm not gonna come by at 10 and say, hey I was here at 3a.m and you guys were closed. Someone owes me an apology.”
Mitch Hedberg American Comedian 1968-2005
