How to say “Sorry” effectively

Jina Kim
Jina Kim
Nov 3 · 3 min read
Photo by NESA by Makers on Unsplash

“What do you like the most about Carta ?” I asked “John”, a new engineer that just joined the team during our weekly one on one.

It was 2015 and we had just received series B. “I like Henry. ” He said, after a minute.

I was a bit taken back about the answer because he hadn’t met the CEO yet.

“Why do you like him?” I asked.

“He apologizes when he makes mistakes. I’ve never seen a CEO say sorry like that.”

That answer really stuck with me. What was he doing that touched employees so emotionally?

Just to give you some background. We all made mistakes in the early days of Carta. But they weren’t necessarily mistakes. They were “failed experiments.” Henry wanted to try things, for example, having a separate team for QA. When things didn’t work, he apologized during the town hall. So what was so special about his apology? What was I missing?

Next time he spoke to the employees, I listened and observed carefully. Then I realized that when he was apologizing, he wasn’t talking fast like he practiced it million times. Instead, his tone got softer and he slowed down his speech with frequent breaks.

He was showing his vulnerability. In other words, his emotional state matched the audience. He tried to understand the pain and the hassle that the engineers had to go through to reorganize the QA team. He wanted employees to forgive him and create a better solution for the backlog of bugs. And that was the type of apology that had made an impression on John.

I received an emotional apology from an unexpected person during a vacation in Italy recently:

“There is something wrong with your rental car reservation.” The Budge rental car agent looked up from his computer as he spoke. “This is the new total.” He handed me the receipt.

This is the last thing I wanted to hear before taking a road trip of a lifetime in Italy. The new total for the rental was 150 euros more than the price on Budget.com.

“No, that can’t be. That was not that the price I was quoted.”

“Yes, I know. But this is the correct price according to my system.” He insisted. We argued back and forth, his colleague finally said something to him in Italian. By this time, I had become a form of entertainment for what seemed like a mile-long line of tourists.

The original agent looked at us, frustrated and then got up and disappeared through the back door. The new agent figured out the problem and turned it back to the original price. Relieved, I thanked him and walked out briskly. I wondered how long until a start-up disrupted the rental car industry in Europe.

I was figuring out how the gears work when I saw the original agent, walking towards me. Uh oh. I smelled trouble. He knocked on the window. I opened the door. Suddenly, he became the nicest man on earth. He shook my hand and said he is so sorry for the mistake and wished me good luck. I couldn’t find any traces of his earlier stubbornness. All I saw was a genuine sincerity. Human to human. His emotional state matched mine and the experience really touched me.

Startups make mistakes all the time and we frequently apologize for our mistakes, especially in customer success departments. If we don’t make our emotional state match our customers, they won’t feel that we truly understand the damage we had caused.

To make a powerful impact, make your apology stand out. Whether it’s a surprise visit or detailing out the steps you will take or just staying on the phone and showing that you truly “care” about their issues. People are surprisingly good at distinguishing authenticity. And that authenticity will make you their trusted advisor in the long term.

Jina Kim

Written by

Jina Kim

Former investment banker turned Client Success Expert, Employee #4 @ Carta

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