The Sorry Detox: The power of ‘thank you’ in customer success
Me: I have some questions about product X, and I was hoping you could help me solve them…
— 24 hours passes —
Customer Service Person: I’m so sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I’m sorry you’ve got issues. Let’s see if we can resolve them for you…
The average person would be pretty happy with this response, and most customer service people would say this is pretty solid. I’ve had similar interactions many many times over the years. I’d give it a 7/10, pretty good.
But, when it comes to customer success, there are some simple ways to improve the interaction.
Apology Addiction
I read this piece on LinkedIn by Lena Dunham (reserve judgement on her while you read it, it’s worth it). It really fundamentally changed the way I use the word ‘sorry’. I’ve gotten much better at apologies over the course of my life.
As a middle-class white man, there’s a lot of value in being able to understand the power of a good, genuine apology (there’s a lot to apologise for, and a lot to learn about following up sorries with behavioural change!).
So what I’m referring to here is not apologising less, or being less sorry for the shit we’ve done wrong that hurts…
