Sorry, Not Sorry

A couple of years ago, I was doing an on-site consultation for a hotel. As I sat at the conference table crunching numbers, I overheard the hotel's GM instructing his assistant on the correct way to respond to online customer reviews. 

"Whatever you do," he said, "never apologize."

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. This direction is the opposite of everything I teach about online reputation and crisis communication. The GM went on to explain that apologizing was admitting responsibility and that doing so would put the hotel at a legal disadvantage.

Ugh.

I've heard this kind of thing before, often from seasoned hoteliers who presumably heard it from even more seasoned hoteliers early in their careers. I could not disagree more.

I am not a lawyer so caveat emptor, but if the advent of social media over the last ten years has taught us anything, it is that the old "Thank you for your feedback" response to a customer service issue not only rings false but can also turn into a firestorm of negativity if it goes viral. 

I recently watched a different hotel's response to a crisis do just that. An altercation on property turned into a major social media moment -- complete with videos, a Yelp mob, and thousands of negative comments. The dust-up at the hotel was bad, but it was nothing compared to the tone deaf and insincere way the hotel responded to it. If the hotel had said, "We are so sorry this happened, and we want to make it right" instead of stubbornly defending how the situation was handled, the people who felt wronged could have been made whole.

While admission of fault can be touchy in jurisdictions that don't distinguish between an admission of fault and an apology, most of the issues we need to apologize for at hotels are not going to be litigated because they aren't illegal. People who complain want to know that a hotel's misstep is an outlier and not the status quo, and an apology shows that the missed wake-up call or midnight fire alarm is outside the norm. 

Has a guest ever taken you to court over a lumpy pillow? 

It doesn't feel good to apologize. It's frustrating to get yelled at, and because we know that our hotels have hundreds of teensy defects every day, we don't always think what people are complaining about is a big deal. But I would venture a guess that no one who feels heard, appreciated, and made whole after a customer service snafu calls a lawyer the next day.

I'm sorry: You really need to apologize.