Did you know that people are more likely to trust and like if you apologize? Even for things outside of your control? It’s true! Demonstrating empathy for another human not only makes them warm up to you, but gains their trust almost immediately.
This, however, does 100% the opposite.
For this reason, partially, it’s always important to not only send an apology email when something has gone awry, but to have some premade and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. This is just one more level of sending personable messages to your subscribers — a way of making their time with you a little more unique. Plus, you know, apology emails perform pretty well. Especially when some sort of offer is involved. (Everyone loves a gift, right?)
If you need some help coming up with good ideas for an apology email, we’ve got a few we’d like to highlight.
Son Of A Glitch
Super recently, American Eagle had some site issues. Instead of just pretending like nothing happened, they owned up to it and sent out a pretty sweet offer as a way of letting their customers know they were sorry. This was the image they used:
The subject line read “Son of a glitch” and the promo code was “NOGLITCH.” Not only was this a great way to play on their site getting wonky on folks, but it provided an opportunity to come up with a pretty rad, eye-grabbing subject line and hero image.
Well That’s Embarrassing
Nothing is a bigger buzzkill than when a site can’t handle a colossal amount of traffic. And when Moosejaw offered a 50%-back rewards offer, a lot of buzzes were quashed pretty quickly.
Not everyone could get on the site, so not everyone could snag a killer fleece pullover and get 50% back. But Moosejaw, the noble retailers they are, stepped up to the plate and moved quickly to get the site in working order. Then they extended the offer and emailed an apology to their customers to let them know.
We love you too, Moosejaw.
We’re Sorry: Save $25 + Free Shipping Through Wednesday
Cyber Monday is a big day for online retailers — if they, you know, update their site to have the Cyber Monday deals they’ve been telling everyone about. When Teavana customers visited the site to score some sweet loose-leaf rooibos and rock sugar at discounted rates, they found the rooibos and the rock sugar, but no discounts. Right, yeah, you can already tell where we’re taking this narrative.
They extended Cyber Monday, and did the discount thing, but we wanted to include this one because of the subject line. Where as the previous two got a little clever with theirs to grab your attention, Teavana went the opposite direction while achieving the same goal — they told their customers exactly what was going on. To the point, no beating around the bush.
Though, we would’ve capitalized “through.”
But that’s none of our business.
The main takeaway from all of these is that apology emails work, and every email marketer should have them pre-built and ready to drop when things take an unexpected turn. Being transparent and including an incentive for your subscribers to jump on can turn an embarrassing mistake into a quick win.
Also check out 5 Important Email Types That Should Be In Your Marketing Arsenal and Think Twice, Click Once: 3 Company Emails People Regretted Sending.