Business Insight Zone

Not much to add to Matt Linderman’s post at Signal vs. Noise, except to point out how the language of Hulu CEO Jason Kilar contrasts to the language of Gerard Arpey of American Airlines — which, you may recall, I critiqued last year.

Hulu:

. . . this note is to communicate to our users that we screwed up royally with regards to how we handled this specific content removal and to apologize for our lack of strong execution. . . . We handled this in precisely the opposite way that we should have. . . . The team at Hulu is doing our best to make lemonade out of lemons on this one, but it’s not easy given how poorly we executed here.

American:

We are doing everything we possibly can to re-accommodate our customers impacted on either other American Airlines flights, or other airline flights, to the extent other airlines are operating in markets where we can get our customers.

The sentiment’s the same, best I can tell, and Arpey wasn’t totally horrible. But it’s always better to sound like a person talking — talking seriously, to be sure, but talking.

Talk like a real person, because you are one and your customer is one. Business shouldn’t turn us into robots spouting jargon, legalese, or passive-aggressive hogwash.

Your human customers will appreciate the gesture.

What examples of good or bad apology language can you point out?

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Original post:

• Signal vs. Noise — Hulu CEO: “We screwed up royally”

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Image by spud murphy, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

Category: Customer service