Ken’s Take: In personal life, apologies can clear the conscience and “clear the air”.
In business, apologies make for good customer relations …
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Excerpted from Business Week, Why It Pays to Apologize, Oct. 12, 2009
What’s the best way for a company to disarm a disgruntled customer? A simple apology beats a cash rebate, according to a new study.
Researchers at Britain’s Nottingham School of Economics worked with a large German wholesaler that sells goods on eBay, tracking the lukewarm or negative comments posted on the site by the company’s customers over six months.
They then responded to the 632 complaints—about defective salt shakers, say, or the late delivery of a leather belt.
Half of the e-mailed responses offered a brief apology. Half offered instead a “goodwill gesture” of a small cash rebate (from $3 to $8). All the e-mails asked the customers to remove the comments they had posted online. For those offered the rebate, it was a condition of receiving the cash.
The result?
About 45% of customers who received an apology withdrew their so-so or negative ratings, compared with 21% of those offered money to do so.
It’s worth noting that the e-mailed apologies were effective even though they were brief and impersonal — and asked for something in return.
Why?
Despite the suspicions people might harbor, “apologies trigger a biological instinct to forgive that is hard to overcome.”
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_41/c4150btw802994.htm
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Tomorrow: Getting personal – 8 principles for making your apologies count …
The Homa Files 
October 26, 2009 at 7:35 pm |
Very interesting article…and defintely something to think about as many of us are inclined to offer money/goods at customers (to make up for bad service) versus a geniune apology. What’s even more interesting is that the apology was still effective when impersonal.