David Christiansen, Founder of TroopTrack, sent us an email about apologizing well:
Over the weekend I broke the single sign on integration between my SaaS boy scout troop management software and ZenDesk, my help desk. It was broken for three days while I was sick, working on my regular job, and trying to enjoy some portion of Easter. I got about 30 emails from exception notifier, letting me know how my mistake was impacting users.
This morning I read your chapter on how to say you’re sorry. I already knew I needed to apologize, but it helped me to be human about it rather than corporate. Here’s what I sent:
Over the weekend I attempted to improve the single-sign-on feature between TroopTrack.com and TroopTrack Help Desk. Sadly, I didn’t do it right and caused two problems:
1) A brief outage over the weekend that impacted some of you.
2) Many of you are now unable to access the help desk.The first problem was fixed within a few minutes, but it was still a pain for those of you who were online when it happened. I’m sorry about that.
I’m still working on the second problem. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. In the meantime, if you are having trouble accessing the help desk and need support, please email me directly or call me.
Thanks for understanding. Software is hard – I learn something new every day. Unfortunately sometimes I’m learning from my mistakes!
I appreciate the reminder REWORK gave me this morning to be myself.
Also, there was discussion in our Campfire room about how well done this was: Atlassian update on a security breach.
In summary — we’ve made mistakes, we’re sorry and we’re fixing them — and we’re going to be honest about what those mistakes are. Half of being a reliable and trustworthy vendor from a security perspective is the technical bits, and even though we erred here, we ultimately pride ourselves on how we handle security. The other half is being open and honest, which we’ll never fail at.
Related SvN posts on apologizing:
Hulu CEO: “We screwed up royally”
The bullshit of outage language
The goal is to apologize sincerely and be taken seriously
ThinkGeek: “We’d never get away with taking advantage of you guys, so why would we try?”
How to S.A.V.E. Customer Service
Derick
on 13 Apr 10@37signals
You must have got inspired to write this post from this mornings (today) edition of VentureBeat – called “Startup lessons learned from Warren Buffet”.
Lesson #1 – “Converse like a real human being”.
Anonymous Coward
on 13 Apr 10Wow, TroopTrack.com design sure reminds me of the Basecamp web site …. just not where near as nice.
David Andersen
on 13 Apr 10Dear Oracle,
There’s a lesson in here somewhere for you.
David Andersen
on 13 Apr 10There’s a lesson somewhere in here for you.
Andy
on 13 Apr 10@David
What are you specifically referring too specifically about Oracle?
Is it related to MySQL?
If MySQL, Oracle has made it extremely clear investment in MySQL will INCREASE.
David Andersen
on 13 Apr 10@Andy -
No, I’m referring to Oracle’s communication around mistakes and problems in general. If it’s possible to be the polar opposite of the cited example, they are. There are individual exceptions, but they are just that.
Kyle West
on 13 Apr 10We took your advice a week or so ago. Check it out: http://rpmware.com/2010/04/01/we-suck-at-the-phone-im-sorry-were-fixing-it/
Response was awesome.
Anonymous Coward
on 13 Apr 10@ALL
You have to realize that large public companies don’t admit mistakes because their legal department won’t let them.
If anyone admits to a mistake publicly, they are now legally liable for any damages that mistake might have caused.
So yeah, I agree with you all that you should “communicate like a human” but you can’t just accept fault always because of this sue-happy culture could put you out of business.
It’s sad, but true.
Anonymous Coward
on 13 Apr 10And realize, you can communicate to like a human – without accepting fault.
Alex Shaffer
on 14 Apr 10Thats an excellent apology, its honest and personal.
dreamfish
on 14 Apr 10“And realize, you can communicate to like a human – without accepting fault.”
Unfortunately, as mentioned above regarding lawyers, they may well insist on you appending your human apology with “This is provided to you without prejudice” to avoid you being sued, thus making it sound less human.
Brett
on 15 Apr 10An excellent example of this appeared in my inbox earlier today from Boingo, which they also wrote about on their blog. The comments provide some interesting insight into what people (customers) think of this honesty.
James J. Griffin
on 15 Apr 10One of the most troubling (and by far the largest focus of my daily interruptions at the office) questions I get is “how do I word this?”
It could apply to an email, letter, contract, etc. My response is always “Well, what are you trying to say?” Inevitably, they should say it just like that. They need to be clear and concise, and most importantly, need to sound like a human being.
So, it’s not just apologies that need this treatment, but all communication. It’s a lot easier to interpret something that was said simply and conversationally than the unnecessary legalease of a layperson.
Thanks to ReWork for reminding us of this.
banked
on 19 Apr 10reality checkpoint:
i enjoyed this article the other day, then this arrived in the post yesterday.
it’s from mbna europe about an old credit card i had.
it’s just a PERFECT example of how prevalent and acceptable this b.s. language is.
quote: “We wrote to you in Dec 2009 advising that we had identified an error in the way that the charging of interest was described, to our customers, in the terms and conditions of our credit card product.
We have completed a full assessment and are now in a position to confirm that this account was affected by this error and as such a refund of 10.50 is due (including compensatory interest as appropriate), please find below a cheque for this amount.
We would like to take this opportunity to reassure you that we have taken steps to prevent a reoccurance. We apologise sincerely for any inconvenience caused.”
ha ha, interesting that at no point have they said how much they overcharged or what amount of interest they are paying. hmmmm….. below are my thoughts when i read it… ;-)
“We wrote to you in Dec 2009 advising that we had identified an error in the way that the charging of interest was described, to our customers, in the terms and conditions of our credit card product. [HMMM OK…]
We have completed a full assessment [WHOAH, SOUNDS LIKE I DON’T GET AN INPUT] and are now in a position to confirm that this account was affected by this error [OH THAT PESKY ERROR, EH!] and as such a refund of 10.50 is due [GUESS I’‘LL TAKE YOUR WORD FOR IT SINCE YOU’RE NOT SHARING THE DATA] (including compensatory interest as appropriate [APPROPRIATE! SAYS WHO?]), please find below a cheque for this amount. [OH YOU’VE JUST WASHED YOUR HANDS OF ME!]
We would like to take this opportunity to reassure you that we have taken steps to prevent a reoccurance. [SO HAVE I – I CLOSED MY ACCOUNT AND MOVED TO ANOTHER BANK]
We apologise sincerely for any inconvenience caused. [INCONVENIENCE! IF I TOOK MONEY FROM YOU WOULD YOU HAVE CALLED IT AN INCONVENIENCE? OR STARTED PROSECUTION :-)]
denise lee yohn
on 19 Apr 10i recently wrote about how companies should say sorry for little things: http://deniseleeyohn.com/bites/2010/01/14/is-sorry-the-hardest-word-for-companies/
This discussion is closed.