Last week, a client asked me to opine on an email newsletter he had received. The subject? “Chief Apology Officers.”
The newsletter claimed that while the title is unofficial, the idea behind it is that companies are elevating the complaint department. The newsletter—and the article on which it was based—spent many bytes describing the oft-touted practices of Southwest Airlines. The entire newsletter could have been reduced to one sentence: “Empowering your complaint department will improve customer loyalty.”
So here’s my opinion on the matter:
“Chief Apology Officer” makes it sound like someone’s trying to institutionalize sympathy; that’s simultaneously sappy and condescending. Bad combo!
Better, IMHO, would be a “Chief Fix My Effing Problem Officer” who can do just that and who will apologize only when a genuine show of empathy is appropriate.
What’s your take?
Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I think if I had a complaint and they sicced some CAO on me I’d be like, ‘What, you’re gonna apologize to me now? Is that all you’ve got?’ And then I’d be all, ‘Hey, do you get 6 figures for C-level apologies? I could do that.’ The concept’s fine but the title’s gotta go.
Agreed. I also prefer the “Chief help you help yourself so you don’t have an effing problem to fix Officer”.
In a perfect world, right?
I don’t like the sound of it, because it puts you in a bad posture from the get-go.
It almost makes it sound like everything was your fault… you can empathize with a customer who has had a bad experience, without assuming the liability that “Apology” denotes.
Pansies.
@Kevin—That sounds like too much work for me, the disgruntled customer. I just want someone to gruntle me, without having to do any more work myself, ya know?
@Ike—Agreed: CAO ranks far too high a score on the pansy scale.
@Working Girl—Pull in 6 figures to be a professional pansy-assed wimpnut?
The jobs that pay more are typically of two varieties: they are either critical jobs that no one wants to do, or jobs that are highly valued. So in way, it makes sense: everyone wants to star in their own little pity parties, but they hate apologizing. So this job sort of nails it from both ends.
Logic can be pretty sick sometimes, huh!
“Pull in 6 figures to be a professional pansy-assed wimpnut?” Well… yeah. Although I guess 7 figures is the new 6 figures. I would probably want 7 figures to apologize for other people’s mistakes.