Saying Sorry

If you ask a politician to use the word sorry, it can be like asking them to run through a wall

 If you ask a child to say sorry, you often get a very sulky, shoulders sagging and mumbled sorry. Or maybe that’s just my kids…

 Even Elton John told us it was hard

But, you know something – I’m not sure there is anything more disarming than a genuine hands up apology, when it’s real.

If an individual, or company, can come out and apologise for a mistake it’s made – without trying to explain it, or caveat it – when they genuinely take responsibility – it’s hard to be cross really isn’t it.

Now clearly this depends on the seriousness of the situation, but to me, sorry isn’t the hardest word – it’s often the most important one.

Because, we all make mistakes. Fact.

We all drop the ball. Fact.

We've all done things we’d prefer we hadn’t.

But we can take the heat out of these situations by apologising.

KFC have nailed their apology this morning, and they’ve received some good feedback.

So let’s look at what they did and why it’s so good:

1.    Humour – both a bit of cheek in the image, and some self-deprecating humour ‘ A chicken restaurant without any chicken…’

One – the cheeky humour fits right in its core demographic, and two, self deprication is pretty well the personification of British. This fits.

2.    They thank their team

Their employees are their customers and advocates, and they are the friends of their customers – this is a big message to them and their families and friends ‘we value you’

3.    They don’t blame anyone else

This issue looks to be the issue of more than just one company. But they don’t go into that. They don’t try and shy away from it. They apologise. ‘we’re sorry’. Not we’re sorry and we’ll be holding our suppliers to account. Just ‘we’re sorry’.

4.    They show their human

'It’s been a hell of a week' – we’ve all had a week at work which has gone pretty badly for one reason or another. Imagine being in team KFC this week… - see you’re empathising with them – it’s genius!

It will take more than just words to repair all of the brand impact for KFC, but what a great way to start…