As humans, it is often our first instinct to apologize to another person when they are dealing with hardship or complaining. We’ve been conditioned this way our entire life. We often over-apologize. But what does apologizing actually do?

                Apologizing by itself often does absolutely nothing for the other person. If Mary says that “I want ice cream” and John simply says “I’m sorry”, this does not help Mary’s situation at all. John did nothing. Mary still wants ice cream. Nothing changed. A negative situation is still negative.

                Subsequently, if our customers experience an issue and we simply say “I’m sorry”, we have done nothing for them. There is a reason the words “apology” and “sorry” mean different things. Furthermore, “sorry” is often an admission of guilt or culpability for their situation. Even when resolving the problem, apologizing for a situation will still leave an overall negative feeling about the interaction, since an apology is only used in negative situations; like accidentally knocking over someone’s ice cream onto the ground. People who have negative feelings about your interaction do not leave positive customer satisfaction scores.

                What we should do is thank that person instead. We thank people in positive situations; like after buying an ice cream cone when your previous one was knocked on the ground. Our job is to turn an often negative situation into a positive one. We can do this a number of ways; for example instead of saying “sorry for putting you on hold”, say “thank you for waiting for me”. Instead of “I apologize for the inconvenience” say “thank you for your patience”. Here we are replacing negativity with positivity and gratitude.

                So when do we apologize? We should absolutely 100% apologize if you do something wrong. When we are responsible for the negative impact of actions we, or someone we are responsible for, did. An apology is not limited to saying “sorry”, but often involves action, intention, and follow-up. Without these three things, an apology is meaningless. Don’t waste your breath, don’t waste their time.

                Now I am by no means saying our job is taking a knocked over cone of ice cream and turning it into a waffle cone topped with two scoops of double-fudge-chocolate-mint with a cherry on top. But our job is to try to guide the interaction towards that end of the positivity spectrum rather than towards leaving the customer feeling negatively, like we knocked over their cone. Next time you want to write/say the words “apologize” or “sorry”, stop and think if you can thank the person instead.