Apology Loop
Everyone’s familiar with apologies that are not sincere or don’t sound sincere. But have you run into a situation where the sincere apology itself offended others? If not, check out what happened to Starbucks in Argentina. Some time back, Starbucks ran out of the imported cups with the Starbucks logo in Argentina. So the company decided to use blank cups made locally. They also decided to proactively apologize via Facebook and Twitter: “We apologize, as due to a temporary supply shortage, some shops are using national cups and sleeves. Salutations.” The choice of wording couldn’t have been worse, could it? It sounds as if they are apologizing for using Argentine cups, doesn’t it? No wonder the reaction was angry and, unsurprisingly, went viral on Twitter. And so Starbucks ended up apologizing for the apology. Starbucks was trying to be upfront and transparent about the situation; instead it just got into more trouble. I guess that’s why they say that no good deed goes unpunished!