When you patronize restaurant, hotel, or another service industry and they make a mistake, they apologize.  We all do it, it’s polite, you’re supposed to, and usually you get a good response when you apologize.  But what happens when you apologize too much?  Any service manual will say apologize three times over to make it right but is that excessive?

When you over apologize to me you make me feel as if you made a larger mistake than it seems.  At restaurants if my server continues to apologize to me it makes me think that they really did mess up.  Instead of sincerely owning up to the mistake and trying to make it up to me with exceptional service you keep dwelling on it. Unfortunately now you have put into my mind that it is a much bigger mistake than it really is.

Stop apologizing, I know you messed up, we all do it but please don’t over apologize you’re making yourself look worse than you actually are.  If someone can’t forgive you for a small mistake after one apology then they don’t deserve you apologizing the fourth and fifth time over, save your breath.

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Tagged as: Apology, Psychology, Service

About the Author

Hi, I'm Jeph. I love helping people make smarter business decisions. I help companies stand out. I consult, speak, facilitate and do project work on new marketing strategies (word-of-mouth, customer service, and social media). My consulting company is JephMaystruck.com Research & Consulting. The marketing industry is changing very rapidly and the only way to stay on top of it is by a philosophy of continuous learning. Do you have an information strategy? Are you learning faster than the world is changing? If not, we should talk. Learn more here: http://jephmaystruck.com/marketing-strategy/ Follow me @JephMaystruck

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