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Yesterday I received a letter from the lovely people at my favourite website – I Want One Of Those.
I ordered a lot of my Christmas shopping from the site, as I have done for some years. This year, they did two big new things – they opened up the site to US residents and became a hot ticket there as well as in the UK; and they advertised on television for the first time.
Their ads were fun and drew the crowds – probably far more then they were expecting. I don’t believe they were ready for it. Normally, iWoot service is the best I’ve ever experienced. No sooner have you finished the order with a final click, than a courier’s tapping you on the shoulder with your delivery. This Christmas was not normal.
I was holding both my breath and the phone line on Christmas eve, worried how I was going to explain the absence of presents to my nephews. The courier arrived as I got through after a 44-minute wait on the phone line. I wouldn’t let the nice young man go until the courier had unpacked my entire order onto the drive and ticked each item off with me. Then I wished them both a happy Christmas. I had a great time and pretty much forgot the iWoot episode until yesterday. I got this in the post;
Dear Customer,
A few months ago I would not have imagined having to write this letter, but I do feel the need to do so now, I would like to apologise for what I regard to have been an unacceptable level of service over the recent Christmas season.
Over the past seven years IWOOT has built up a solid reputation for being utterly reliable, communicative and fast in all our dealings with customers, but last Christmas, we failed to maintain the consistent standards to which our customers have become accustomed. Whilst the vast majority of our customers will not have noticed any drop in service levels, for some the result was abysmal. I will make no excuses, and detailing the reasons why your order went awry will be of little consolation to you either. We have spent years building up a high level of trust with our customers, and we’re devastated that at such an important time as Christmas we have in too many instances, undermined that trust.
It has always been our purpose that once one of our customers makes an order, then that order is delivered to their door in its entirety, extremely fast and with no hassle. So when that doesn’t happen, as may have been the case with your order this Christmas, we have failed, and for that we are all deeply sorry.
I quite understand that having let you down, you may want nothing more to do with us, and in your position I might well feel the same. I should like however to assure you that this failure was very much the exception and not the rule: the purpose of this letter is simply to stand up and apologise for having let you down, and to say how deeply sorry we are for any grief we have caused. As you might expect, we are working extremely hard to ensure that for the future, IWOOT customer service is consistently exceptional and something we can all take pride in delivering. Initiatives, such as the hotline for our most loyal customers, will be made available later this year and I shall write to you again when these are to be launched.
With best wishes
Yours sincerely
Richard Wainright-Lee
Managing Director, I Want One of Those.com Limited.
Teaching and training in the area of leadership is what I do. To me, this shows strength in vulnerability, humility and real, authentic leadership. Things go wrong sometimes and it’s in those moments that leaders are either exposed or promoted.
Mr. Wainright-Lee, there should be more like you.
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11 Comments on: "Best Corporate Apology – Ever!"
Hey – great post! Thanks for sharing this. And big thumbs up to Richard W-Lee for his letter. Shows great courage… and yes – leadership.
Hi Heather,
Greatly touched by your blog. Thank you.
In all fairness, our Customer Service guys were so upset with some of the service levels over Christmas they rather ganged up on me to write to our customers.
The nice things you say should really be pointing their way, not mine. Have therefore redirected your message to them!
But thank you anyways.
Warmest regards
Richard
Great post, thanks for sharing this letter. Companies that take the time to write nothing more than an apology letter are the kinds of companies i would like to associate with. Thanks again!
Now that’s an impressive act from Mr Wainright-Lee and iWOOT in general. Owning problems like that and taking responsibility when things go wrong is an extremely rare commodity in today’s business environment.
Thanks also to you, Heather, for posting. Christmas Eve must have been a worrying time..!
Cheers,
Martin.
Yea, thanks for posting. Aside from the obvious, it’s also a good learning experience of what to do in such situations. Sometimes, a carefully worded letter just makes a helluva difference!
If you’re a drudge fan: drudgetracker.com
Hello Heather, I think that many, many people are pretty scared to send this kind of letters to their customers because they will appear as weak. But I really agree with you, leaders HAVE to show some humility in order to keep customers happy.
I know some “general managers” that could use this as an advice.
Another reason why I buy from IWOOT – they’re just real people selling some cool stuff, and apparently enjoying doing it! A company of the type I’d love to be a part of one day.
Dear Heather,
Well done, Richard! As a fervent believer in new styles of work – this is what being excellent to the customers is all about – now the issue of iWOOT is to deliver – and you can bet with the calibre of managing director there it will happen.
ONe can see the 5 skills of emotional intelligence, as identified in 1987 by Golman here: 1. Self-awareness 2. Self-restraint 3. Motivation 4. Empathy 5. Social Skills
I would like to see more promotion for ability than for bluster, results rather than illusion, and networking rather than divide and conquer into clique office politics, and more good leaders will certainly help that process along, won’t they.
Keep well, and be intelegant,
John Montgomery Rouse
Business Intelegant
http://www.intelegant.org
Wow, what a great response to this post, thanks.
@ Ben – I agree, courage is an essential element of leadership.
@ Richard – Your response just underlines what I already thought about your leadership, share the praise. And, yes, good for your people, they have pride in their company.
@ Erica – I agree, where I felt less enthusiastic, I’ll go out of my way to use iWoot now.
@ Martin – I have a great feeling about you, love your blog, keep moving toward that dream!
@ Jimmy – Indeed, a consumate lesson in relating to people, not just customers.
@ Vicente – Yes, yes, yes. People often confuse humility and vulnerability with weakness, in fact they hold great power.
@ Audigex – Yep, just love to shop at that site, it’s SO cool.
@ John, Thanks for so beautifully rounding off the comments with a lesson! We will talk more, I’m sure!
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