chrisbrogan.com» apology http://www.chrisbrogan.com Learn How Human Business Works - Beyond Social Media Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:30:05 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 The Power of Apology http://www.chrisbrogan.com/the-power-of-apology/ http://www.chrisbrogan.com/the-power-of-apology/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:17:12 +0000 ceb http://www.chrisbrogan.com/?p=3522 sorry The other day, I made a mistake. I sent 17,600 (or so) people an email that was actually intended for a select 200 people. It was a mechanized delivery process, and it just went to the wrong list. I started getting messages back almost immediately by people who didn’t much appreciate what felt very much like spam.

I felt mortified. I didn’t want to address it. I wanted to hide under a rock.

Instead, I drafted a very quick message to say that I was sorry. I sent it out to the same 17,600 (or so) people and asked their forgiveness. And then I waited. Here’s a sampling of what I got back for responses:

Lynn – You’re a class act. I wondered about that email. Now I understand. Mistakes happen, and once again, you show how to react.

Nicole – YOU can spam me any day! JUST YOU! Hope all is well and Happy Monday!

David – We forgive you. J Hope all is well at SXSW.

Judy – Gosh! It’s lovely of you to send this note. And I understand – hey, it happens to everyone!
Thank you for this follow up e-mail. It’s very nice.

Pat – All is forgiven. Good to see even the great ones make the same mistakes we do :).

In fact, I went through several thousand responses (many of them “out of office”) and found not ONE person who said something negative after sending the apology. Now, in truth, I imagine that most people who were upset by the mistake voted by opting out of receiving mail from me ever again. But I was thankful to see that my apology seems to have been the right thing to do.

What do you think? Have you ever had a situation like that?

Photo credit Robert Brook

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