UK businesses don't know how to say sorry

A national survey by Michael C Fina, the reward and recognition specialists, reveals that the British public are dissatisfied with companies' efforts to show they are sincerely sorry for mistakes.

The survey by Michael C Fina, the leading reward and recognition specialists, reveals that 83 per cent of the British public are dissatisfied with companies efforts to say sorry and 60 per cent of the country would expect a personalised apology from a business if it had made a mistake.

Jonathan Haskell, CEO of Michael C Fina, commented: "Many businesses clearly need to review their policies and sharpen up their approach if they do not want to lose customers.

"The British are increasingly refusing to be fobbed off with a few insincere words from a call centre operator when a delivery doesn't arrive on time or a mistake is made.

"We want a sincere apology - in writing, preferably - with a gift to make up for the disappointment.

"This mistaken approach is costing organisations millions in lost business and marketing activity to replace it: remember it typically costs eight to 10 times more to acquire a new customer than keep an existing one - so why do companies not make a greater effort to persuade a potentially dissatisfied client to stay by apologising properly? Why did the company not try harder to retain my loyalty by showing that they were sincerely sorry when they made a mistake? "For most of us, a small quality gift ex gratia with an apologetic message would be effective.

"With only one out of 26 people complaining when dissatisfied, the majority of us simply express our dissatisfaction by changing supplier.

"I suspect that, by taking a different approach to handling customer complaints, aiming to win over the customer, UK businesses could avoid spending enormous sums recruiting new customers to replace those that leave".

The dissatisfaction runs through all age groups with 87 per cent of 51-60 year olds and 83 per cent of 21-26 year olds agreeing with one another on this.

Haskell concluded: "These results suggest that the British are generally not very good at apologising, despite expecting sincere apologies from others.

"Businesses are far too often failing to make appropriate amends for their discrepancies - they must review their customer service policies".

Results are based on 630 respondents.

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