Sorry seems to be the hardest word, especially for brands. Too fawning, too fake, too little, too late… One way or another more often than not they seem to get it wrong.

Which is why we’ve put together this handy dandy (brand-y) guide to navigating the mea culpa minefield and penning a perfect brand apology…

 

1. React

If you smell a corporate screw up, don’t look the other way. Gather your smartest people (ideally around a campfire) to work out what went wrong, and how to deal with it.

 

2. But don’t over-react

There’s no nice way to say this, but… no one cares about your brand. Not like you do, anyway.

Which is why sometimes, what looks to you like an existential crisis can look to everyone else like not a very big deal, unless you make it one.

So before you rush to unfurl that big ‘I’M SORRY’ banner out the window of your WeWork, pause. Step back, and use some judgement about whether an apology is warranted, and how big it needs to be.

Leaked the credit card details of 10,000 customers?

Make it big. Make it abject.

Delivered one customer’s bottle of hot sauce a day late?

Unless that customer writes to tell you that that bottle of hot sauce was their dying grandmother’s last wish and with her final breath she whispered ‘where’s my hot sauce?’, a tidy private email will probably do the trick.

 

 

3. Say sorry

Literally. Say the word. Just say it. Let’s practise together: ‘we’re sorry’.

 

4. Say why

Play back what happened. Don’t skirt around it. Don’t minimise it. Just say what you did wrong in simple language.

 

 

5. Focus on them, not you

Don’t go babbling about how you pride yourself on excellent service and it pains you to your very core to think that on this occasion you blabbedy blah blah blah blah blah.

Instead, acknowledge the impact your cock-up had on your reader. For example:

We know that by cancelling the show last-minute, we’ve messed up your plans.

 

6. Fix it

… if you can. And tell them how. If you can’t, explain what you’re doing to make sure it won’t happen again.

 

7. Keep it short

You’ve already pissed someone off. Don’t make it worse by wasting their time. Just say what you need to say quickly and clearly.

 

 

8. For the love of god, don’t use the passive voice

‘Mistakes were made’.

All by themselves?

Really?

‘We made a mistake’. ‘We deleted your booking’. ‘Our CEO insulted an important religious leader’. You get the idea.

 

9. Beware the non-pology

You know the kind: ‘We’re sorry you feel that way.’ ‘We’re sorry if that upset you.’ Sneaky phrases like these look like apologies, but they don’t feel like apologies. And that’s because they shift blame away from the speaker and onto the listener. Like it’s all their fault for being such a quivering little snowflake about it.

 

We hope that you never need this brand apology list. But let’s be honest, you probably will, because companies are just collections of people. Sleepy, hungry, cranky people who will sometimes get things wrong. And when they do, FIRE THEM. We’re kidding. When they do, the best tactic is to handle it with speed and sincerity, but no more fuss or fanfare than it needs.