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The Apology Impulse: How the Business World Ruined Sorry and Why We Can’t Stop Saying It
Saying sorry is in crisis. On one hand there are anxious PR aficionados and social media teams dishing out apologies with alarming frequency. On the other there are people and organizations who have done truly terrible things issuing much-delayed statements of mild regret.
We have become addicted to apologies but immune from saying sorry.
In January 2018 there were 35 public apologies from high-profile organizations and individuals. That's more than one per day. Between them, in 2017, the likes of Facebook, Mercedes Benz and United Airlines issued over 2,000 words of apologies for their transgressions. Alarmingly, the word 'sorry' didn't appear once.
This perfectly timed book examines the psychology, motivations and even the economic rationale of giving an apology in the age of outrage culture and on-demand contrition. It reveals the tricks and techniques we all use to evade, reframe and divert from what we did and demonstrates how professionals do it best. Providing lessons for businesses and organizations, you'll find out how to give meaningful apologies and know when to say sorry, or not say it at all.
The Apology Impulse is the perfect playbook for anyone - from social media executive through to online influencers and CEOs - who apologise way too much and say sorry far too infrequently.
- GenresNonfictionBusiness
360 pages, Hardcover
Published October 29, 2019
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August 31, 2022Corporations say sorry all the time, but nobody really means it. They’re just apologizing to try and escape damage at the hands of disgruntled customers whose complaints are amplified by the viral media. In order to reclaim the act of saying sorry as an expression of genuine remorse, we need to apologize only when we’ve actually done something wrong. When we say sorry, we should focus on the experience of the people who’ve been hurt, take full responsibility for our actions, and follow through on our promises of reform and reparation.
Actionable advice:
When faced with a conflict, take some time to reflect before responding.
When someone is angry with you, it’s very tempting to reply immediately and try to placate them, or maybe fire back an angry response of your own. But the best responses are thoughtful ones. Take a day to really look at the situation and do some soul-searching. Are you at fault? And if so, how can you make it right? One well-crafted response is much more effective than a barrage of messages blurting out the first thing that comes to mind.
---
Corporations are apologizing so much that saying sorry has lost its meaning.
In the first few months of 2014, American Airlines apologized to customers an astonishing 200 times per day. You might think that they were in the midst of a huge crisis, but in fact, things were going smoothly. They were apologizing for minor grievances such as delays and meals that weren’t to customers’ satisfaction.
Industries like airlines, taxi services, and supermarkets are especially sensitive to customer complaints because it’s very easy for a customer to change companies if they’re unhappy. If you book a Ryanair flight and then get angry about not being able to check your pet canary in, you can always try your luck with easyJet instead. But if you get annoyed with your bank, you’ll have to go through a lot of tedious admin in order to change. That means “high friction” industries like banks and telecom companies invest a lot less energy in customer service, while “low friction” ones, like airlines, have to work very hard to keep your custom.
The advent of social media has meant that customers get to air their grievances on the world stage. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter give companies a way to directly interact with their customers, which can have enormous advantages for strengthening their brands. But on the other side, it gives customers a perfect platform to “name and shame” corporations who have displeased them. To appease such customers, corporations have taken to apologizing – all the time.
While this outpouring of remorse might seem like a positive thing, it’s actually made the act of saying sorry lose its meaning. If a company employs a strategy of tactical appeasement in response to every complaint, it weakens the legitimacy of genuine apologies.
Corporations need to keep a sense of proportion when deciding if – and how – to apologize. Making a grovelling apology for a minor transgression makes light of more serious injuries. When Tesco said that they were “very sorry” for the life-threatening mistake of dispensing the wrong medication to a customer, they sounded sincere. However, they also said they were “very sorry” for mistakenly labelling dress-up costumes. One mistake could cause serious illness or even death, while the other is completely trivial. Treating them as worthy of the same kind of apology is absurd.
When it comes to apologies, quality trumps quantity. Apologizing selectively actually increases an organization’s credibility. It also shows that it’s able to be genuinely reflective, and that when it says sorry it really means it.
---
Corporations have mastered the art of saying sorry, not sorry.
The cast of La La Land had a few seconds of pure euphoria when they won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2017. But euphoria turned to disbelief when it was revealed that they hadn’t won it at all; Moonlight was the true recipient. The organizers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, had bungled the envelopes with the winner’s names.
In a statement released the next day, PwC said, “We apologize…for the error that was made.” At first, it might sound like PwC was taking responsibility. But by using the passive voice, it was sneakily trying to squirm out of doing just that.
Corporate apologies are famous for being full of these kinds of linguistic gymnastics. One corporate strategy is to use euphemisms or jargon to try to make a situation look better than it actually is. For example, when a video surfaced of a United Airlines passenger who was violently removed from his chair on an airplane, CEO Oscar Munoz made the situation much worse when he said the airline had needed to “re-accommodate a passenger.” This description was so out of touch with reality that it made the controversy around the incident much larger and caused internet commentators to boil with rage.
In an even more dangerous understatement, the chemicals giant Arkema Inc. refused to acknowledge that there had been an explosion at one of its factories, describing it instead as “overpressurization followed by a fire.” By refusing to acknowledge that there had actually been an explosion, Arkema not only misled the public but also put first responders in danger. Several people at the scene were injured because they weren’t properly informed about the explosions.
Understatement is only one linguistic trick used by corporate PR teams. Another is to subtly cast doubt on the victim’s version of events by using evasive language. For example, when it was revealed that scores of Canadian parents had lost custody of their children on the basis of flawed drug tests performed on strands of hair, the laboratory, Motherisk, apologized only that the families “feel they may have been impacted in some negative way.” That slippery formulation makes it seem that the damage is a feeling, rather than a catastrophic reality that Motherisk needs to account for. This does a terrible disservice to the victims.
All effective apologies are predicated on the guilty party acknowledging and then taking full responsibility for what happened. Only then can they ask for forgiveness. By using jargon, euphemisms, and slippery language, corporate apologies have become empty defensive statements, rather than true expressions of remorse.
---
Companies are forgetting that apologies must always be centered on the injured parties.
Imagine you fall in a hole that’s been left in the sidewalk by some construction workers, injuring your leg. When you complain, the building company responds by telling you how stressful and hard the situation is for them. Chances are, you’ll be even more upset by that response.
It might seem very obvious that an apology should focus on the people who have been hurt. But many corporations make the mistake of focusing on how the situation is affecting them, rather than the injured party.
In 2010, BP had a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused 11 deaths and 16 injuries aboard the oil rig, and devastated the environment. When he addressed the public, CEO Tony Hayward made the big mistake of talking about himself instead of focusing on the victims. He said, “There’s no one who wants this over more than I do…I want my life back.” Naturally, this statement caused a huge amount of hurt and outrage, especially among the families of the people who had actually lost their lives.
While this is an especially bad example, the tendency to talk about companies rather than victims is widespread. For example, Samsung used an apology to claim that “safety remains our top priority” in spite of the fact that its Note 7 devices were prone to bursting into flames. And when data firm Equifax had a data breach that put 143 million people’s vital information at risk, it argued that “We pride ourselves on being a leader in managing and protecting data.” It’s understandable that a corporation would scramble to try and bolster its reputation in the face of such a crisis. But here again, Equifax made the apology about itself and what it aspires to be, instead of centering on the people who had actually experienced damages.
When you’re recovering from your fall and nursing your broken leg what you want to hear is that people see how you’re suffering and what broader impact it’ll have on your life. And that they’re very, very sorry. Apologizing doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.
---
Sometimes it’s better not to apologize at all.
You might think that when you complain about a company, you’re talking about an abstract, faceless entity. But really, behind any organization’s PR strategy there’s a team of real people, and they’re often quaking in their boots when on the receiving end of a negative social media campaign.
When you have thousands of angry tweets and Facebook posts accusing your company of the worst possible things and threatening a boycott, it can be easy to panic and try to do anything to appease them.
But a corporation needs to keep a sense of perspective and be able to tell the difference between the feelings of its actual client base and its social media following. The loudest voices on Twitter may not actually be the people who buy its products.
The fitness supplement brand Protein World understood this distinction very well. When its billboard campaign attracted widespread criticism for featuring a bikini-clad model with the tagline “Are you beach body ready?” it simply refused to apologize. This seemed like a risky move, but it actually worked in the company’s favor – it attracted 20,000 new customers and generated one million pounds in sales over four days. The company understood that its core market consisted of people who were motivated to work out and look just like the model on the billboard. By refusing to appease its critics, Protein World signaled loyalty to its real customers. As this example shows, criticism isn’t always a bad thing for a brand.
By refusing to apologize when an apology isn’t necessarily due, a company can show that it has a strong backbone. For example, when Marks & Spencer was accused of selling toilet paper adorned with aloe leaves which spelled out “Allah” in Arabic, it behaved very differently to H&M. In spite of mounting pressure, it refused to cave. Instead, it issued a statement saying that it had investigated the claim, and found that the toilet paper was categorically an aloe leaf. In refusing to apologize, M&S broke the outrage cycle.
When the flood of criticism comes, PR teams need to take a few deep breaths and start investigating before they blurt out an apology. If they review the facts and discover they’re culpable, then they need to say sorry unreservedly and take steps to make things right. But if in fact no apology is due, they should stand strong and stick to their principles. It's a difficult call to make, but it's the only way to safeguard the true meaning of saying sorry.
Actionable advice:
When faced with a conflict, take some time to reflect before responding.
When someone is angry with you, it’s very tempting to reply immediately and try to placate them, or maybe fire back an angry response of your own. But the best responses are thoughtful ones. Take a day to really look at the situation and do some soul-searching. Are you at fault? And if so, how can you make it right? One well-crafted response is much more effective than a barrage of messages blurting out the first thing that comes to mind.
---
Corporations are apologizing so much that saying sorry has lost its meaning.
In the first few months of 2014, American Airlines apologized to customers an astonishing 200 times per day. You might think that they were in the midst of a huge crisis, but in fact, things were going smoothly. They were apologizing for minor grievances such as delays and meals that weren’t to customers’ satisfaction.
Industries like airlines, taxi services, and supermarkets are especially sensitive to customer complaints because it’s very easy for a customer to change companies if they’re unhappy. If you book a Ryanair flight and then get angry about not being able to check your pet canary in, you can always try your luck with easyJet instead. But if you get annoyed with your bank, you’ll have to go through a lot of tedious admin in order to change. That means “high friction” industries like banks and telecom companies invest a lot less energy in customer service, while “low friction” ones, like airlines, have to work very hard to keep your custom.
The advent of social media has meant that customers get to air their grievances on the world stage. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter give companies a way to directly interact with their customers, which can have enormous advantages for strengthening their brands. But on the other side, it gives customers a perfect platform to “name and shame” corporations who have displeased them. To appease such customers, corporations have taken to apologizing – all the time.
While this outpouring of remorse might seem like a positive thing, it’s actually made the act of saying sorry lose its meaning. If a company employs a strategy of tactical appeasement in response to every complaint, it weakens the legitimacy of genuine apologies.
Corporations need to keep a sense of proportion when deciding if – and how – to apologize. Making a grovelling apology for a minor transgression makes light of more serious injuries. When Tesco said that they were “very sorry” for the life-threatening mistake of dispensing the wrong medication to a customer, they sounded sincere. However, they also said they were “very sorry” for mistakenly labelling dress-up costumes. One mistake could cause serious illness or even death, while the other is completely trivial. Treating them as worthy of the same kind of apology is absurd.
When it comes to apologies, quality trumps quantity. Apologizing selectively actually increases an organization’s credibility. It also shows that it’s able to be genuinely reflective, and that when it says sorry it really means it.
---
Corporations have mastered the art of saying sorry, not sorry.
The cast of La La Land had a few seconds of pure euphoria when they won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2017. But euphoria turned to disbelief when it was revealed that they hadn’t won it at all; Moonlight was the true recipient. The organizers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, had bungled the envelopes with the winner’s names.
In a statement released the next day, PwC said, “We apologize…for the error that was made.” At first, it might sound like PwC was taking responsibility. But by using the passive voice, it was sneakily trying to squirm out of doing just that.
Corporate apologies are famous for being full of these kinds of linguistic gymnastics. One corporate strategy is to use euphemisms or jargon to try to make a situation look better than it actually is. For example, when a video surfaced of a United Airlines passenger who was violently removed from his chair on an airplane, CEO Oscar Munoz made the situation much worse when he said the airline had needed to “re-accommodate a passenger.” This description was so out of touch with reality that it made the controversy around the incident much larger and caused internet commentators to boil with rage.
In an even more dangerous understatement, the chemicals giant Arkema Inc. refused to acknowledge that there had been an explosion at one of its factories, describing it instead as “overpressurization followed by a fire.” By refusing to acknowledge that there had actually been an explosion, Arkema not only misled the public but also put first responders in danger. Several people at the scene were injured because they weren’t properly informed about the explosions.
Understatement is only one linguistic trick used by corporate PR teams. Another is to subtly cast doubt on the victim’s version of events by using evasive language. For example, when it was revealed that scores of Canadian parents had lost custody of their children on the basis of flawed drug tests performed on strands of hair, the laboratory, Motherisk, apologized only that the families “feel they may have been impacted in some negative way.” That slippery formulation makes it seem that the damage is a feeling, rather than a catastrophic reality that Motherisk needs to account for. This does a terrible disservice to the victims.
All effective apologies are predicated on the guilty party acknowledging and then taking full responsibility for what happened. Only then can they ask for forgiveness. By using jargon, euphemisms, and slippery language, corporate apologies have become empty defensive statements, rather than true expressions of remorse.
---
Companies are forgetting that apologies must always be centered on the injured parties.
Imagine you fall in a hole that’s been left in the sidewalk by some construction workers, injuring your leg. When you complain, the building company responds by telling you how stressful and hard the situation is for them. Chances are, you’ll be even more upset by that response.
It might seem very obvious that an apology should focus on the people who have been hurt. But many corporations make the mistake of focusing on how the situation is affecting them, rather than the injured party.
In 2010, BP had a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused 11 deaths and 16 injuries aboard the oil rig, and devastated the environment. When he addressed the public, CEO Tony Hayward made the big mistake of talking about himself instead of focusing on the victims. He said, “There’s no one who wants this over more than I do…I want my life back.” Naturally, this statement caused a huge amount of hurt and outrage, especially among the families of the people who had actually lost their lives.
While this is an especially bad example, the tendency to talk about companies rather than victims is widespread. For example, Samsung used an apology to claim that “safety remains our top priority” in spite of the fact that its Note 7 devices were prone to bursting into flames. And when data firm Equifax had a data breach that put 143 million people’s vital information at risk, it argued that “We pride ourselves on being a leader in managing and protecting data.” It’s understandable that a corporation would scramble to try and bolster its reputation in the face of such a crisis. But here again, Equifax made the apology about itself and what it aspires to be, instead of centering on the people who had actually experienced damages.
When you’re recovering from your fall and nursing your broken leg what you want to hear is that people see how you’re suffering and what broader impact it’ll have on your life. And that they’re very, very sorry. Apologizing doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.
---
Sometimes it’s better not to apologize at all.
You might think that when you complain about a company, you’re talking about an abstract, faceless entity. But really, behind any organization’s PR strategy there’s a team of real people, and they’re often quaking in their boots when on the receiving end of a negative social media campaign.
When you have thousands of angry tweets and Facebook posts accusing your company of the worst possible things and threatening a boycott, it can be easy to panic and try to do anything to appease them.
But a corporation needs to keep a sense of perspective and be able to tell the difference between the feelings of its actual client base and its social media following. The loudest voices on Twitter may not actually be the people who buy its products.
The fitness supplement brand Protein World understood this distinction very well. When its billboard campaign attracted widespread criticism for featuring a bikini-clad model with the tagline “Are you beach body ready?” it simply refused to apologize. This seemed like a risky move, but it actually worked in the company’s favor – it attracted 20,000 new customers and generated one million pounds in sales over four days. The company understood that its core market consisted of people who were motivated to work out and look just like the model on the billboard. By refusing to appease its critics, Protein World signaled loyalty to its real customers. As this example shows, criticism isn’t always a bad thing for a brand.
By refusing to apologize when an apology isn’t necessarily due, a company can show that it has a strong backbone. For example, when Marks & Spencer was accused of selling toilet paper adorned with aloe leaves which spelled out “Allah” in Arabic, it behaved very differently to H&M. In spite of mounting pressure, it refused to cave. Instead, it issued a statement saying that it had investigated the claim, and found that the toilet paper was categorically an aloe leaf. In refusing to apologize, M&S broke the outrage cycle.
When the flood of criticism comes, PR teams need to take a few deep breaths and start investigating before they blurt out an apology. If they review the facts and discover they’re culpable, then they need to say sorry unreservedly and take steps to make things right. But if in fact no apology is due, they should stand strong and stick to their principles. It's a difficult call to make, but it's the only way to safeguard the true meaning of saying sorry.
September 22, 2020
In the Apology Impulse, Cooper and O'Meara investigate why there's an influx of public apologies and whether they are worth their salt. They analyse high profile cases in the recent past in the US and UK based companies to say what they did right and areas for further improvement. One thing that they noted was that companies readily made apologies when a high-level figure when had made a huge error like in the case of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.
It has been insightful to read this book in 2020 when some companies received backlash over their slow responses to major issues like the BLM movement. Cooper and O.Meara point out that the delayed response to a major issue may not necessarily mean that the company is not addressing the issue but they are addressing it so that when do take action, it is meaningful. They highlight the role of traditional and social media has taken the role of judge and jury in tackling issues that they may not necessarily be qualified to handle and in some cases, do more harm than good.
The authors urge companies to identify their real audience and recognise situations where they really need to make apologies. Real people exist behind social media handles. Hence, social media users and consumers should be careful in the way that they share information.
While the book did take me a while to get through, I found it quite illuminating and I enjoyed the dry humour. I think The Apology Impulse is an instructive book that everybody with a social media handle should read.
This book was provided by the publisher as an eARC via Netgalley
It has been insightful to read this book in 2020 when some companies received backlash over their slow responses to major issues like the BLM movement. Cooper and O.Meara point out that the delayed response to a major issue may not necessarily mean that the company is not addressing the issue but they are addressing it so that when do take action, it is meaningful. They highlight the role of traditional and social media has taken the role of judge and jury in tackling issues that they may not necessarily be qualified to handle and in some cases, do more harm than good.
The authors urge companies to identify their real audience and recognise situations where they really need to make apologies. Real people exist behind social media handles. Hence, social media users and consumers should be careful in the way that they share information.
While the book did take me a while to get through, I found it quite illuminating and I enjoyed the dry humour. I think The Apology Impulse is an instructive book that everybody with a social media handle should read.
This book was provided by the publisher as an eARC via Netgalley
July 13, 2020
Албан байгууллагууд хэрэглэгчидээ алдахгүйн тулд уучлаарай гэдэг үгийг амны амны уншлага мэт хэрэглэдэг болсон. Тэд гол нь үнэхээр хийсэн үйлдэлдээ харамсаж байна уу, үүнийгээ засаж залруулахыг хүсэж байна уу. Ер нь өөрсдийн буруу эсэхийг нягталж байна уу гэдэг өөрөө том асуудал болжээ.
Үнэхээр л зохиолчийн дурдаж байгаа жишээнүүдийг харахад бид бусдад таалагдахын тулд бүхнийг хийдэг болсон. Нөгөөтэйгүүр аливаа нөхцөлд байдалд байгууллагынхаа нэр хүндийг цэвэр авж гарахын тул чин үнэнч уучлалт эрж байгаа нь ховордоод байх шиг. Бүр зарим тохиолдолд хэрэглэгчид гомдол гаргаж байна уу эсвэл онлайн ертөнцөд хүмүүс зүгээр үзэл бодлоо илэрхийлж байна уу гэдэг өөрөө том асуулт юм байна.
Үнэхээр л зохиолчийн дурдаж байгаа жишээнүүдийг харахад бид бусдад таалагдахын тулд бүхнийг хийдэг болсон. Нөгөөтэйгүүр аливаа нөхцөлд байдалд байгууллагынхаа нэр хүндийг цэвэр авж гарахын тул чин үнэнч уучлалт эрж байгаа нь ховордоод байх шиг. Бүр зарим тохиолдолд хэрэглэгчид гомдол гаргаж байна уу эсвэл онлайн ертөнцөд хүмүүс зүгээр үзэл бодлоо илэрхийлж байна уу гэдэг өөрөө том асуулт юм байна.
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August 31, 2022Corporations say sorry all the time, but nobody really means it. They’re just apologizing to try and escape damage at the hands of disgruntled customers whose complaints are amplified by the viral media. In order to reclaim the act of saying sorry as an expression of genuine remorse, we need to apologize only when we’ve actually done something wrong. When we say sorry, we should focus on the experience of the people who’ve been hurt, take full responsibility for our actions, and follow through on our promises of reform and reparation.
September 3, 2024
This book was well written and includes such an impressive amount of data- it was not what I expected or was looking for. It was full of case study after case study of big companies or celebrities making apologies and analyzing those apologies. I was hoping it would include some psychology about why we as a culture (beyond the business world) say sorry so much. Two stars because it was a little boring.
July 12, 2020
Corporations should only say sorry wherever necessary. In order to reclaim the act of saying sorry as an expression of genuine remorse, we need to apologise only when we have actually done something wrong. When we have apologised, always focus on the people who have been hurt, take full responsibility for our actions, and follow through on promises of reform and reparation.
March 6, 2020
Probably better than a four-star, it offered great insight to an interesting topic. It was timely and entertaining with good information for consumers and documented guidance for communication professionals.
May 31, 2022
Met een gewone sorry kom je er niet meer vanaf ... 😁
Read
August 31, 2022Fascinating!
March 5, 2022
It was about how companies play with the words when they should show a reaction on a mistake they have made in public. I did not know there is a PR team (public relation) in big companies and they do that. For example they mostly use passive sentences to put responsibility on chances and nature.
I've read it's Blinkist summarized version.
I've read it's Blinkist summarized version.
August 31, 2022
The Apology Impulse (2019) reveals how corporations have cheapened the act of saying sorry. These days, apologies are issued to customers for any perceived slight, with the sheer quantity making them meaningless. At the same time, corporations offer weak, jargon-filled fauxpologies in situations where real apologies are required. To save the apology, corporations need to learn how to say sorry wholeheartedly but only when strictly necessary.
Key points:
Corporations are apologizing so much that saying sorry has lost its meaning.
Companies are forgetting that apologies must always be centered on the injured parties.
Criticism isn’t always a bad thing for a brand.
Example: “Are you beach body ready?”
Attracted new customers working to achieve billboard body status.
Viral media & reclamation of genuine remorse: focus on the experience of those hurt
Reform & Reparation: reflect before responding
*look at the situation
*soul search
Your response should be well crafted.
Key points:
Corporations are apologizing so much that saying sorry has lost its meaning.
Companies are forgetting that apologies must always be centered on the injured parties.
Criticism isn’t always a bad thing for a brand.
Example: “Are you beach body ready?”
Attracted new customers working to achieve billboard body status.
Viral media & reclamation of genuine remorse: focus on the experience of those hurt
Reform & Reparation: reflect before responding
*look at the situation
*soul search
Your response should be well crafted.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews