{"id":15559,"date":"2017-01-05T15:03:29","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T14:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.targettraining.eu\/?p=15559"},"modified":"2018-06-06T12:29:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T10:29:20","slug":"the-business-of-apologizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.targettraining.eu\/de\/the-business-of-apologizing\/","title":{"rendered":"The business of apologizing"},"content":{"rendered":"

During my time working for a global IT helpdesk, I received more than fifty calls on an average day. We were the first point of contact for the client\u2019s 110.000+ employees, who called us with questions about just about anything to do with IT. Our customers were experts in their field. Our SLAs (Service Level Agreements) were demanding \u2013 as customer service experts, we were expected to have an average CSAT score of 4.7 out of 5. It\u2019s not a success story. <\/strong>
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<\/span>Not for lack of trying, to be clear. Everyone was happy to help, when the customers were friendly, or the problems easy to fix. Some of us, including me, didn\u2019t mind the more challenging customers or problems. A lot of our customers phoned us in moments of frustration, with good reason. They were in the middle of something \u201cimportant\u201d and now the software wasn\u2019t working, or the computer, or the printer, or whatever. Schedules were interrupted, money was being lost, bad impressions were being made on their clients, and so on. As customer service experts, we understood the three dimensions of service<\/u><\/a> \u2013 there\u2019s always something going on in the background. So whatever frustrations came at us, we knew that they weren\u2019t personal.<\/p>\n

At the same time, they didn\u2019t help when it came to the all-important relationship building. (Who wants to do that with someone who\u2019s always shouting down the phone?) Most of us quickly learned that frustrated people tend to want to vent and that somehow, venting is easy to a voice on the phone. We worked hard, but our CSAT was down due to a large number of factors, not all related to our ability to be nice to customers. Many other things influence customer satisfaction: long waiting times (another SLA), lack of expertise, etc. As customer service experts, we were expected to apologize, if our customers had experienced delays or when they were otherwise unhappy with something. Some of my colleagues balked at the idea. Apologize? What for, I didn\u2019t do anything wrong. They actually refused.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry, that\u2019s not an apology<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s also a difficult topic to raise in customer service training. I\u2019ve learned that people are very passionate about the „to apologize or not to apologize“ question. According to the dictionary an apology is a regretful acknowledgement of failure. Many people however, think that an apology is the same as admitting a mistake, or taking the blame. Like some of my colleagues did.\u00a0 Some of them couldn’t apologize, almost like the ability to apologize was missing from their DNA. Others felt they would betray their values by handing out an apology for something that wasn\u2019t caused by their wrong-doing. The problems didn\u2019t end there. A few of my colleagues were handing out apologies like they were the solution to everything. Back on the helpdesk, these were some of the phrases that shouldn\u2019t have been circling:<\/p>\n

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  • It’s my job to apologize to you<\/li>\n
  • Yeah, sorry about that<\/li>\n
  • I guess I should say sorry about the delay<\/li>\n
  • I\u2019m not going to apologize for that, I’m just trying to do my job here<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Emotional vs. Neutral cultures<\/h2>\n

    And, consider for a moment the intercultural aspect of complaints. A complaining Brit (who says \u201cI\u2019m afraid I have a problem\u201d with only a slight raise in pitch) will not sound like something is wrong, not to an Italian helpdesk agent. British people guard their emotions, language is polite, whenever possible. The Seven Dimensions of Culture<\/a> tells us that the United Kingdom (as is Germany) is a neutral culture. In neutral cultures, reason influences action far more than feelings. Italy is an emotional culture, where people tend to want to find ways to express their emotions.<\/p>\n

    Apologists vs. Non-apologists<\/h2>\n

    It\u2019s simply so: some people find it extremely difficult to apologize. Approximately 50% of my helpdesk colleagues were non-apologists. Asking a non-apologist to apologize for something they did \u2018wrong\u2019 is asking a lot. Asking a non-apologist to apologize for something that they had no influence over is asking too much.\u00a0 As soon as we talk about the business of apologizing, someone in the training room will say exactly what some of my colleagues said: Me? Apologize? What for? I didn\u2019t do anything wrong. A non-apologist. They’re everywhere.<\/p>\n

    The elements of effective apologies<\/h2>\n

    According to a recent paper, called \u201cAn Exploration of the Structure of Effective Apologies\u201d* the best-received apologies contains all six of the following elements (the researchers found that the most important, by far, was acknowledgement of responsibility):<\/p>\n

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    1. Expression of regret<\/li>\n
    2. Explanation of what went wrong<\/li>\n
    3. Acknowledgement of responsibility<\/li>\n
    4. Declaration of repentance<\/li>\n
    5. Offer of repair<\/li>\n
    6. Request for forgiveness<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In memory of my colleagues<\/h2>\n

      This post is dedicated to all the apologists and non-apologists that I had the pleasure of working with. And here, to finish on a high note, are the few of the apologists‘ apologies that also circled (and also deserve to be immortalized on the web). (Click here for more phrases to use in an apology.)<\/a><\/p>\n

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      • Sir, I cannot express in words how sorry I am about that.<\/li>\n
      • On behalf of everyone on my team, I want to offer you an apology.<\/li>\n
      • It’s absolutely our fault and for that I apologize. This should never have happened.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        And our customers…<\/p>\n

        Almost all our customers were friendly professionals who appreciated our dedication, even when we couldn’t come up with the solution immediately. In no way do I want to imply otherwise. Unfortunately, those customers wouldn’t have made this post very interesting.<\/p>\n

        * The\u00a0paper, called \u201cAn Exploration of the Structure of Effective Apologies,\u201d was published in the May 2016 issue of\u00a0Negotiation and Conflict Management Research<\/em><\/a>. (You can read the abstract<\/a> online.) The academics \u2014 lead author\u00a0Roy Lewicki<\/a>, professor emeritus of management and human resources at\u00a0The Ohio State University\u2019s Fisher College of Business;\u00a0Robert Lount<\/a>, associate professor of management and human resources at Ohio State; and Beth Polin, assistant professor of management at Eastern Kentucky University \u2014 presented fictional apologies to 755 people.<\/span><\/p>\n

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        FOR MORE INFORMATION<\/h2>\n

        Read more about the 3 dimensions of service<\/a> and how you can use them in your business communication. In the video, Dr. Fons Trompenaars answers the question „How do intercultural skills connect to communication skills?“ Please contact us<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n