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My old boss called my apology to a client 'fake as hell' and it rewired how I say sorry
Back in 2019 I ran the front desk at a dentist office in Bakersfield and I messed up a scheduling thing that made a mom drive 40 minutes for nothing. I wrote her an apology email with all the usual stuff, "we sincerely regret any inconvenience" and "we value your time," and my boss Marlene read it over my shoulder and just said "that reads fake as hell, you didn't even name what you did wrong." I was mad for like two days but she was right, I never actually said the specific thing I did. So I rewrote it, said I put her in the 2pm slot when I meant to put her at 2pm two weeks out, owned the mix up by name, and offered to hold a Saturday slot for her kid. She came back, and she stayed a patient for years after that. Now when I see some celeb drop a notes app apology, I always check for one thing, do they name the exact thing they did or do they hide behind vague words. That Marlene line ruined me for every public apology I read now. Am I the only one who does this check, or is naming the actual mistake the real test for you too?
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henryt1815d ago
The bigger problem with those notes app apologies (and the whole PR machine behind them) is that the vague wording isn't lazy, it's on purpose. Lawyers and publicists tell them never to admit the specific thing because that's what gets used against you later, so "I'm sorry for any hurt I caused" is really just "my team told me not to say what I did." That's why Marlene's test works so well, since naming the exact mistake means you're giving up the escape hatch and taking the hit. Once you strip out "any inconvenience" and "I value you," there's nothing left to hide behind, you either own the 2pm thing or you don't. For me the second test is whether they say what they're doing to fix it, not just that they feel bad, because anyone can feel bad for a day and then go quiet. The combo of naming it plus a real fix (like holding that Saturday slot) is the whole game, and honestly most famous people fail both parts.
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