Unless you work in a customer facing role…then you throw out apologies all over the place to calm people down. Never need to act on the apology. Just need to get through the shift. Management isn’t going to change the structures that cause the poor experience anyway.
I used to do that, but I stopped because I’m trying to be less of a people-pleasing doormat in general. Plus people don’t like empty apologies from company reps anyway… it often led to more hostility. Apologizing also tends to give to the impression that they are right to be pissy whiny assholes, which isn’t something that should be encouraged at all.
Instead, I started saying “I very much understand your frustration; let’s see what we can do to get this resolved for you.” This makes you and the customer (psychologically) a team against the problem, and they are less likely to go off on you.
I definitely stole that tactic from car salespeople. And it works super well.
Unless you work in a customer facing role…then you throw out apologies all over the place to calm people down. Never need to act on the apology. Just need to get through the shift. Management isn’t going to change the structures that cause the poor experience anyway.
I used to do that, but I stopped because I’m trying to be less of a people-pleasing doormat in general. Plus people don’t like empty apologies from company reps anyway… it often led to more hostility. Apologizing also tends to give to the impression that they are right to be pissy whiny assholes, which isn’t something that should be encouraged at all.
Instead, I started saying “I very much understand your frustration; let’s see what we can do to get this resolved for you.” This makes you and the customer (psychologically) a team against the problem, and they are less likely to go off on you.
I definitely stole that tactic from car salespeople. And it works super well.