What Makes a Good Apology E-Mail?
Chad White
May 21, 2009 | COMMENTS 
As was made clear by the 2008 inductees into the Oopsy Hall of Fame, it's incredibly difficult to avoid making at least small slip-ups and mistakes in the fast-paced world of e-mail marketing, even for the largest retailers. However, as cringe-inducing as many of those oopsies are, most do not rise to the level of requiring an apology e-mail. For those that do, there is a set of best practices worth noting. Here are seven tips for a graceful recovery:
1. Send the apology e-mail as soon as you can. Apologies work better the sooner they're sent. Placing the apology in the pre-header text can be quick, but for those times that you need to send a dedicated e-mail, consider creating an apology e-mail template like Norm Thompson and SmartBargains have done, so that you can react quickly.
2. Make it clear in the subject line that you're apologizing. The silver lining about having to send an apology e-mail is that they're often among the best performing e-mails, according to some marketers. I suppose it's rubbernecking meets the inbox. For that reason, if you've made a big error and are apologizing for it, make it clear in the subject line. Even if someone wasn't affected by the problem, they're likely to open the e-mail just to see what you're sorry about.
3. Give them a reason to forgive you. If you want to increase the effectiveness of your apology, give your subscribers a compelling reason to forgive you. For instance, if you have server problems that stop some of your customers from taking advantage of an e-mail offer, extend the offer. That's what SmartBargains did in a December 12 e-mail, when website sluggishness prevented some subscribers from activating the discount in the company's Secret Santa e-mail. You don't want customers to feel like they missed out because of your mistake.
4. Know when to use humor and when to be serious. You can try to laugh off relatively minor mistakes, especially if your brand's e-mail personality is a little whimsical or jokey. People appreciate it when you poke fun at yourself, especially when no one was seriously affected by your mistake.
For instance, in a May 7 e-mail, Neiman Marcus uses the image of a woman writing lines on a blackboard to inject a little humor into its apology. And in an August 5 apology e-mail, AbeBooks blames vampires for its problems telling subscribers about the latest book by "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer.
However, the safer play in most cases for most brands is a straightforward, sincere apology that shows that you respect your subscribers' time.
5. When it's really bad, have it signed by an executive. When it's serious, you escalate it—up to the head of customer service, to a VP, to the CEO. For instance, in a July 30 e-mail, J. Crew apologizes for website and call center problems in an e-mail signed by two executives as a sign that the company takes the issue seriously. In a rather bizarre apology, an August 13 Overstock e-mail used the CEO's occasional column to apologize for a typo that apparently created an "inappropriate message."
6. Don't make excuses. Just fix the problem. People don't care why a problem occurred so much as what you've done or are going to do to fix it. For instance, in an August 4 e-mail, Spiegel assures subscribers that the "problem has been corrected." Keep any explanation of what went wrong to a minimum.
After you apologize—and preferably even before—make sure the problem is fixed. If you have to apologize repeatedly for the same problem, your customers won't believe that you're truly sorry. If you're prone to deployment problems or coding errors, put a process in place to eliminate or at least reduce those errors. If your servers keep getting overloaded, find a way to expand your capacity.
7. Don't make a mistake in the apology e-mail. This may seem obvious but I've seen this happen on more than one occasion. For example, on March 30, 2007, MLB sent an e-mail with the subject line "Watch the Civil Rights Game LIVE on ESPN." The e-mail was completely blank. The next day the company apparently tried to correct the mistake by resending the e-mail, even using the same subject line. That e-mail was also completely blank. If you're really sorry, make sure that the apology e-mail or any resend is flawless.
And this year, after sending a December 11 e-mail that apologized for a malfunction in its Secret Santa e-mail promotion, SmartBargains had to send another apology when the response to the now-functional promotion overwhelmed its website. Although in this case the problems were different, the back-to-back apologies still looked bad.
I hope that you'll be able to avoid making any major mistakes, but if you find yourself needing to issue an apology, follow this advice and your subscribers will be more likely to forgive you.
Chad White is research director for Smith-Harmon, which provides e-mail marketing strategies and creative services to businesses. This article first appeared on MediaPost's E-Mail Insider blog. Contact him at cwhite@smith-harmon.com.
