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g an additional payment. I spoke with Irene, and she said they would put your account on hold for 30 days so you won’t receive any additional bills.”This statement reassures the client you are making sure they don’t need to spend additional time resolving the problem. Many industries will handle this step by giving the customer or client something tangible, such as a discount, credit, or free products. Just work with the tools you have available. In my industry, our currency was customer service, so that was what we offered.Rule #4: Don’t give the customer an assignment“You can disregard your current bill and contact us if you receive any future bills” or, even better…. “You can disregard your current bill. I will call the doctor’s office in 10 days to confirm they have received payment and adjusted your account. I will follow up with you once I have confirmation.”Rule #5: Identify the root cause and confirm how you are correcting it“I have reviewed our system and determined we coded the copay amount incorrectly. We have updated our system, and I’ve confirmed claims are now processing correctly. I will be running a report and reprocessing any claims that we paid incorrectly. I will confirm when this is complete.” or even better… “I have reviewed our system and determined… I will confirm when this is complete. We would be happy to send an apology letter to all affected clients and explain what we are doing to correct this issue.”These steps should be offered/taken without any prompting. The person handling the complaint might not be able to perform this type of root cause analysis. In those instances, we would change the wording to indicate that we handed off the issue to the appropriate area, and follow-up would occur when completed.Rule #6 — Explain the actions you are taking to ensure this problem does not happen again.“I will be following up with the area that adds the benefits to our claim processing system. We will ensure we are initiating a quality control step to ensure we review the benefits before we process any claims in the future.”The above action is possibly the most crucial step. Many people can forgive one-off problems.

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The above scenario would be less visible if an individual employee called to complain their claim was processed incorrectly. The scenario changes completely when the mistake happens to the head of Quality Control or the customer's VP of Human Resources.When these issues happened, my wording would be changed to convey my sense of urgency and assure the customer that resolving this issue would be a top priority.I followed these steps for years, and in most situations, the customer went away happy. Sometimes the mistake would be on their end. For example, they might have communicated the co-pay was $50, and it should have been$ 25. Even though the mistake wasn’t ours, we would still accept ownership if necessary. And we would always complete all steps.My customers were very forgiving, and I believe my integrity made this possible. They knew I wasn’t afraid to admit mistakes, and I would always correct them. My responsiveness also helped with this. If I responded right away 90% of the time, they could usually forgive a delayed response.You are probably wondering what happened with the political post? Was I fired? Here is the basic wording of the email I sent:“Dear team: Last night, I attempted to tweet a political post from my personal Twitter account. I didn’t realize I logged into the company Twitter account. I immediately deleted the retweet. I reviewed our list of followers, and there were only three since this is a new account. Because I sent this late at night and corrected it almost immediately, I find it unlikely anyone read the tweet. If you would like, I can contact each follower individually to apologize. I have also logged out of the company Twitter account, and I will only log back in if I am actively working on sending tweets or responses. Please let me know if there are any additional steps you would like me to take.”The response?“Thank you for resolving. I appreciate the steps you have taken. No further action is needed.”I didn’t mention this was probably week two of being employed by my company. My mistake could have ended badly. This is why I stick with my rules. They have helped me turn around many negative situations, and I know they will help in the future too!</article></body>

The Essential Ingredients to a Sincere Apology

If you can’t be sincere, what’s the point?

I recently shared a political post from my employer’s Twitter feed. Luckily I got a notification my employer had shared the post. My first thought was, “Wow, they shared the same post I shared!”. And then, “Wait, that’s not an appropriate post for a non-profit mental health clinic!”. Finally, “Oh crap, I did that!”

I spent 22 years working in customer service for a large health insurer. My roles included supervising customer service teams for ten years and acting as a single point of contact for large employers' HR departments for the next ten years. Most of these companies are names you would be familiar with: large hotel chains, technology, aerospace, and large department store chains.

If I didn’t resolve a complaint correctly, it could result in a complaint catching the senior management's attention or my employer. Luckily this rarely happened, but I did learn to accept responsibility for mistakes, regardless of who caused them.

Rule # 1: Be honest: Don’t even think about trying to cover up the problem. Most likely, it will get out anyway, and you will lose integrity.

“I have reviewed the claim, and I see we took a $50 copay, and the correct copay amount is $25.”

This statement is factual and honest, explains what happened and what should have happened.

Rule #2: Explain what you are doing to rectify the problem.

“I have sent the claim to be reprocessed and apply the correct copay. The payment will go out in the next 7 to 10 working days.”

This statement explains what you are doing to fix the problem affecting the person inquiring immediately.

Rule #3: Go above and beyond whenever possible

“I have contacted your doctor’s office and explained we are sending an additional payment. I spoke with Irene, and she said they would put your account on hold for 30 days so you won’t receive any additional bills.”

This statement reassures the client you are making sure they don’t need to spend additional time resolving the problem. Many industries will handle this step by giving the customer or client something tangible, such as a discount, credit, or free products. Just work with the tools you have available. In my industry, our currency was customer service, so that was what we offered.

Rule #4: Don’t give the customer an assignment

“You can disregard your current bill and contact us if you receive any future bills” or, even better…. “You can disregard your current bill. I will call the doctor’s office in 10 days to confirm they have received payment and adjusted your account. I will follow up with you once I have confirmation.”

Rule #5: Identify the root cause and confirm how you are correcting it

“I have reviewed our system and determined we coded the copay amount incorrectly. We have updated our system, and I’ve confirmed claims are now processing correctly. I will be running a report and reprocessing any claims that we paid incorrectly. I will confirm when this is complete.” or even better… “I have reviewed our system and determined… I will confirm when this is complete. We would be happy to send an apology letter to all affected clients and explain what we are doing to correct this issue.”

These steps should be offered/taken without any prompting. The person handling the complaint might not be able to perform this type of root cause analysis. In those instances, we would change the wording to indicate that we handed off the issue to the appropriate area, and follow-up would occur when completed.

Rule #6 — Explain the actions you are taking to ensure this problem does not happen again.

“I will be following up with the area that adds the benefits to our claim processing system. We will ensure we are initiating a quality control step to ensure we review the benefits before we process any claims in the future.”

The above action is possibly the most crucial step. Many people can forgive one-off problems. The above scenario would be less visible if an individual employee called to complain their claim was processed incorrectly. The scenario changes completely when the mistake happens to the head of Quality Control or the customer's VP of Human Resources.

When these issues happened, my wording would be changed to convey my sense of urgency and assure the customer that resolving this issue would be a top priority.

I followed these steps for years, and in most situations, the customer went away happy. Sometimes the mistake would be on their end. For example, they might have communicated the co-pay was $50, and it should have been $25. Even though the mistake wasn’t ours, we would still accept ownership if necessary. And we would always complete all steps.

My customers were very forgiving, and I believe my integrity made this possible. They knew I wasn’t afraid to admit mistakes, and I would always correct them. My responsiveness also helped with this. If I responded right away 90% of the time, they could usually forgive a delayed response.

You are probably wondering what happened with the political post? Was I fired? Here is the basic wording of the email I sent:

“Dear team: Last night, I attempted to tweet a political post from my personal Twitter account. I didn’t realize I logged into the company Twitter account. I immediately deleted the retweet. I reviewed our list of followers, and there were only three since this is a new account. Because I sent this late at night and corrected it almost immediately, I find it unlikely anyone read the tweet. If you would like, I can contact each follower individually to apologize. I have also logged out of the company Twitter account, and I will only log back in if I am actively working on sending tweets or responses. Please let me know if there are any additional steps you would like me to take.”

The response?

“Thank you for resolving. I appreciate the steps you have taken. No further action is needed.”

I didn’t mention this was probably week two of being employed by my company. My mistake could have ended badly. This is why I stick with my rules. They have helped me turn around many negative situations, and I know they will help in the future too!