This has been advocated by mediators for decades. Their job is to bring adversaries to compromise, which is often a matter of finding some acceptable amount of compensation but is often a matter of rectifying hurt feelings and emotional damages. I have heard many suggest that a heartfelt apology can go a long way to smooth the ruffled feathers and enhance someone's willingness to listen and compromise.
These thoughts came back to me reading about an absent-minded economist in Chicago and his anger with a ride-hailing app on his telephone. The story is from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and involves Uber, an absent-minded professor, academic research on our emotions, and an apology. The point of it reaches beyond the previously mentioned "heartfelt" and explores how to make that apology effective.
The situation arose when the professor hailed an Uber, provided his destination, and settled into the backseat absorbed in his thoughts. He was en route to deliver a presentation and was apparently absorbed in preparation. To his credit, he could have been distractedly driving through Chicago and instead chose to distractedly ride.
When he was jolted from his concentration, some 20 minutes later, he found himself almost back home. The Uber application "had instructed the driver to return to the professor's
home," and the driver quietly obeyed as she was reluctant "to disturb him, as he was so engrossed in his work." That part of the story may take some energy to accept on its face, but we move on.
The absorbed professor was angry. But, the article explained that "what made him more so, was that Uber never sent him
an apology." That is likely a scenario that, in some form, has confronted each of us in the course of our life journey. It is likely that there have been those who should have apologized, and their failure to do so may have affected us. I have known people to break off contact with friends and even family over some perceived slight, accompanied by an absent but desired apology. Leaving a vendor over a slight is reasonably easy by comparison.
This particular professor had a bit of an advantage. He happened to know the CEO of Uber. The probability of you being satisfied with the outcome of any dispute likely increases in proportion to your ability to bring the situation to someone in authority (speaking to a bot = zero chance, speaking to CEO = 100% chance, where will you fall on that spectrum?)
The call to the CEO friend elicited the apology for the experience. The article seems short on discussion of rectifying the human element: why not tell your passenger that something seems amiss? Why drive thirty minutes back to the point of origin without politely interrupting to inquire about what is seemingly a glaring error? Not being an Uber user, perhaps I am missing something there. Maybe one of you will write and explain to me that roundtrip Uber rides without apparent purpose are a normal occurrence?
But, the real point is that this phone call to the CEO afforded the professor a chance to address the idea of apology. He was given access to large volumes of Uber user data, and performed economic research to document whether mistakes lead to economic impact. They do. In fact, he "discovered that riders who'd experienced such a bad ride would spend up to 10%
less on Uber in the future." Therefore, the business has an interest in satisfied customers. Wo knew?
That is not an earth-shattering revelation. Everyone reading this post has had a bad customer service experience at a restaurant, car rental, airline, hotel, or store, (you get the picture) that has resulted in a reluctance to return. Just recently, I received a card in the mail advertising a new local restaurant. It was appealing and attractive.
Then I noticed its address was the same as another restaurant at which I once received lackluster service. I intend to still try the new offering, but that prior experience is lurking in my head (as they have the same address, are they the same owners, will the service be any better, etc.?) Our experiences grant us perspective and expectation. It is natural for our economic decisions thereafter to be influenced by those.
The economics professor then composed "a variety of apologies," and instigated an experiment to determine which of them was the most effective in assuaging the feelings and emotions of those who had been let down by the business. The conclusion is that "there's a sort of science of sorry," that has long been advocated by "social scientists - and psychologists in
particular," but with the Uber data analysis, the actual impact was studied objectively. When experimenting on humans, it is perhaps best that the test subjects not know they are being studied? When we know we are being watched, we may be on our best behavior, a dorm of "observer bias." A strength of this analysis is that the customer's data was observed without their knowledge.
What the professor concluded is that there are various apologies: the "basic" sorry, the "commitment" sorry (this won't happen again), and even the "let me make it right" apology (which in this instance came with a coupon for next time. The article does not mention the one I relied upon in the restaurant business, which was the "there's no charge for that since it didn't meet expectations" sorry. I found that one was almost always gratefully accepted.
The professor concluded that "on their own, apologies in whatever form proved ineffective." Apparently saying you are sorry does not heal the wound and encourage a repeat engagement, even if there is a heartfelt commitment to preventing a repeat. However, when the apology was "coupled with the $5 coupon," there was a perceivable effect in keeping the off-put customer "loyal." The researchers concluded that "what consumers
want, it turns out, is for a company to demonstrate its remorse by taking a
material financial hit." Perhaps that is why my experience with the "no charge" offer was so consistently a success?
What is surprising, however, is that the professor's research supports that there are limits, apparently fairly low limits, to our capacity for forgiveness even with the coupon. The results supported that even the "coupon apology" "ceased to work if there was a second or third bad trip." In fact, his team perceived that such apologies following repeated failures became more of an aggravation than a balm for those customers.
The BBC article suggests that this knowledge can be applied in a variety of business settings. Can it be applied in the setting of compromise in mediation? One might conclude not, on the basis of those negotiations inherently involving accompanying monetary elements (the "coupon"). There is perhaps merit in that primary conclusion.
However, there may be value in the researcher's conclusions that there is no apparent distinction between the "basic" sorry and the "commitment" sorry. When either is coupled with some monetary element, there is a probability of acceptance and success. This reinforces what mediators have been encouraging for years, the inclusion of a sincere apology to smooth the feelings and facilitate an agreement. As the mediation tends to have the monetary element built in, that may reinforce that apology can be a positive element.
Does an apology mean you are wrong? I would suggest not. Instead, it would seem that you are instead being the more engaged mediation participant, appreciating that the mediation is a human interaction that is subject to human emotions and feelings. I would suggest that by acknowledging someone else's feelings you are not admitting fault or even necessarily responsibility. You are merely acknowledging that the party has an emotional hurdle that could hinder your progress. And, you are helping them over it.
By sincerely apologizing to them for what they perceive, perhaps you can enhance the chances of your progress. As apology has been discussed over the years, I have heard the context repeatedly about an employer apologizing to the injured worker. However, in practice, I have also seen the effect of an employee apology. One sticks in my mind that involved a work accident of a severity that closed a production facility for a day. The employer suffered a serious financial loss from that closure and then faced the cost of the injury, recovery, etc.
Months later at the mediation, I recall the injured worker greeting the employer representative with a firm handshake, accompanied with an "I am sure sorry for all I've put y'all through." It affected and impressed the employer representative that day. It made that mediation smoother. It produced empathy and consideration. It facilitated the deal that was concluded that day. It was particularly powerful because the person with the pain, the lost personal income, and other real impacts from the accident (even if you are not wrong) were making the apology.
Apology is powerful. It smooths emotion. It encourages empathy. It facilitates conversation. And, in many instances, it supports compromise and commitment.
The BBC article details a variety of other economic findings about Uber customers and drivers that may also be of interest. It is worth the time to read for a variety of reasons. But the focus just keeps returning to that apology and the power it possesses.
