The rare CEO apology
Posted
Mar 20 2008, 03:05 PM
by
Kim Peterson
I've been thinking about CEO apologies today after reading the Jeff Bezos note plastered on Amazon's front page. Bezos' contrition stems from the fact that the company sold out of the new Kindle electronic book reader in 5.5 hours, and it has been scrambling to increase production ever since. Some customers have waited six weeks to get one. Soon, Bezos said, Amazon will start shipping Kindles to people the same day they order them.
"We had high hopes for Kindle before its launch," Bezos wrote, "but we didn't expect the demand that actually materialized."
This wasn't exactly an apology -- Bezos never said he was sorry -- but it did have a "we screwed up" tone. And yet it smacked of product promotion -- it was another opportunity to advertise the Kindle to everyone who visits Amazon today. Amazon shares rose more than 4% today to $73.25.
If I had to wait six weeks to get my Kindle, I'd be pretty angry. After all, a major retailer like Amazon should have been better prepared for this situation. Why not delay the launch by a month to get inventory up? Amazon is completely at fault, and instead of posting a note, Bezos should have given free Kindles to those who had to wait the longest.
Was Bezos' note good enough? Apologizing is tough, and the CEO apology is an art form. It must be sincere, it must placate angry customers and shareholders and it must inspire trust and confidence in the executive moving forward.
We don't see CEO apologies very often. Here are some recent ones, courtesy of the interesting site Apology Index:
Whole Foods' John Mackey : "I sincerely apologize to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards. I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me."
Apple's Steve Jobs: "We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We
apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to
live up to your high expectations of Apple."
JetBlue's David Neeleman: "Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that you, your family, friends and colleagues experienced. This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel, and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week."
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg: "We really messed this one up. When we launched News Feed and Mini-Feed
we were trying to provide you with a stream of information about your
social world. Instead, we did a bad job of explaining what the new
features were and an even worse job of giving you control of them."
Here's what crisis management expert expert Michael Robinson has to say about the CEO apology: "I think an apology is important. You have to demonstrate some level of contrition. I think you also have to say that you're making sure nothing else is going on...There are some people or organizations that are always cited with an adjective in front of it: 'Beleaguered CEO Carly Fiorina;' 'Troubled pop princess Britney Spears.' Once you acquire that first adjective, it's [a] hard climb out of the cellar."
The best corporate apologies come in the form of action. Take what Best Buy did this week. It's mailing a $50 gift card to all the poor souls who bought an HD-DVD player at its stores. (HD-DVD is now an all-but-obsolete technology, having been beaten by rival Blu-ray). That could cost the company $10 million or so, but the goodwill it gets from customers in return? Priceless.
Disclosures: I don't own shares of any companies mentioned in this
post. And while Microsoft owns this blog, Microsoft does not control,
censor or otherwise have any editorial influence over what I write.
