When a brand stuffs up, delivers a poor customer experience or simply gets it wrong, an apology can save them from severe commercial damage.

Some one ‘apologised’ to me recently. Quite badly. Delivered by a third party, hours after the event with little recognition of a wrong doing. It made me think that if it’s that hard for a person to apologise, then how hard is it for a large corporation or brand?

I decided to do some research. I found that some brands had cracked the apology well and there are three key components to a good apology:

1. Do it yourself. When you or your brand make a mistake, you or your brand should be the ones to apologise. Don’t use a PR person or a third party. In fact, stick the CEO up-front and centre to offer an explanation to what went wrong and why. In 2011, Netflix’ CEO Reed Hastings had to make two big apologies: first for increasing the prices; and then another for trying to rename the DVD delivery service “Qwikster.” Customers hated both ideas, and Hastings admitted his mistakes very publicly.
2. Offer it unconditionally. Don’t make excuses like ‘it was the IT system’ or ‘the bloke in the call centre’ or ‘the black cat up the tree’. Just admit it and say we should have done better. Last year Gorman Australia responded to a bad ethical rating by their holding company Factory X by posting up an Instagram photo of Liao, a worker in Gorman’s Chinese factory, who’s quoted as saying he loves the label’s colours, as though that quells ethical concerns. The photo was also tagged with #whomademyclothes – a social media campaign for Fashion Revolution Week that they were not a part of. It all reeked of ‘this is not our fault’.
3. Do it with meaning. When you apologise for something, you must mean it. This means:
   1. Offering the apology in the moment. Don’t leave it until you can find the time between executive emergency meetings or when you have lost thousands of customers or even when the twitter universe has had a field day. Do it in the moment when things have just gone pear-shaped so that people know you are onto it and really care.
   2. Offer the customer or person something back. Compensate appropriately for the stuff up and put your money and time where your mouth is. Following Volkswagens emissions scandal, Michael Horn delivered what he called ‘a sincere apology’, but few saw it this way. Horns performance lacked any meaning, was delivered with little remorse and most importantly, it was unclear how the business was going to fix the problem.

Famously and well documented when Taylor Swift criticised Apple for not paying artists’ royalties during a trial period for its new music streaming service, the company didn’t hang about. Within 24 hours, an Apple executive took to Twitter to say it was changing its policy, executing a complete U-turn. There was no press release, no pre-emptive briefing, just a tweet saying: “We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. Love, Apple“.

Take note, the great brand does it again. Make your apology immediate, make it mean something and take proper action to fix it.

Written by Pip.