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Welcome to Loyalty MagazineLoyalty Magazine reports on customer retention,loyalty schemes, rewards, affinity, CRM, call centre issues, direct and viral marketing, mobile and internet channels for both B2B and B2C enterprises. It covers all global markets and business sectors, including retail, financial services, travel and hotels, telecoms and electronic commerce. |
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Thursday, 15 October 2009 15:44 |
 Why is it so difficult to say sorry?
A year after the financial sector bailout, Which? has found that there is still widespread consumer resentment against the banks especially as they have consistently refused to either admit guilt or say sorry for what happened. Which? Is suggesting consumers should vote which song best sums up the attitude of bankers.
In the same week, Ryanair has given away 1.1 million free seats in an unusual response to a BBC documentary criticizing the company. It has denied the claims made in the documentary, Why Hate Ryanair?, and declared on its website that the BBC's “hatchet job” had “uncovered – nothing, nada, rien, diddly squat” and listed 11 points that the program made that it claimed were false or misleading.
So is it necessary to say sorry when something backfires, as Gordon Brown and many MPs did over the expenses scandal, or do we all feel that humble pie is false anyway, so why bother?
Now we all know that Ryanair charges outrageous amounts if you fail to check in online, have the audacity to take a suitcase with you, or try to pay with your credit card, but they have never made a secret of any of this. Like them or hate them, if we want a cheap flight somewhere, most of us will steel ourselves for an unpleasant few hours and make the most of it. OK so it is nicer to have a lean back seat and a drink, but is it worth the extra?
Ryanair's outspoken head, Michael O'Leary took an attacking approach to the Panorama programme. He refused to be interviewed unless the producers guaranteed his interview would run unedited. The producers refused.
Should he apologise for what is the Ryanair business model?
Ryanair says it has done nothing to apologise for; that the Panorama programme was “more Bananarama than Panorama." Said the company in a statement. "The BBC had no case, no facts and no clue. The only benefit it provided to viewers was the 1.1 million free seats Ryanair will give away as a result of its false claims." The 1.1 million seats are available for travel in November and December, with no destination restrictions, and can be found on the company's website.
So brazening it out may work if you are sure of your ground, like Michael O’Leary clearly is, but what about those bankers?
As Which? launches a major new campaign, ‘Britain Needs Better Banks’, its latest research shows that almost two thirds of people are still really angry with the banks for causing the financial crisis.
Consumers feel that the apologies have not been made well enough, with three quarters thinking the banks aren’t genuinely sorry for causing the financial crisis. Three out of five people don’t feel that banks have learnt their lessons from the crisis, and four out of five believe that senior level bankers have got away without having to pay the price for their mistakes.
Such is the frustration with banks that a third of people think that, in future, the government should allow them to go bust rather than bail them out, and just under four out of five believe the banks have not done enough to ensure a credit crunch doesn’t happen again.
So what about the Which? suggestion that we should choose a song to illustrate how we feel about the bankers? This is their selection so far, as published on its ‘Britain Needs Better Banks’ website – www.bnbb.org - from a national poll that sum up peoples’ views of the banks.
o Gold Digger - Kanye West
o Hey Big Spender - Shirley Bassey
o I Hate You So Much Right Now - Kelis
o I’m Paying Taxes, What Am I Buying - Fred Wesley and the JBs
o Money For Nothing - Dire Straits
o Smooth Criminal - Michael Jackson
o Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word - Elton John
o Take The Money And Run - Steve Miller Band
o That Don’t Impress Me Much - Shania Twain
o The Winner Takes It All - ABBA
They are asking consumers to vote, or to nominate their own suggestion.
So would an apology help?
It is often argued that if a company apologises well, this is an opportunity to bring a customer back into the fold, and even make the relationship better. But is a false apology worse than no apology at all?
If a company is always apologizing, doesn’t this dumb down the whole process and make it ineffectual?
Few people believed the MPs when they apologized for their expenses claims and Michael O’Leary has gone up in the consumer ratings after he stood up for himself and refused to be humble.
So where does this leave the banks? Profits are going up and so will the bonuses soon. Consumers are still smarting, but then we have always hated the banks, haven’t we? A few apologies aren’t going to change that.
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