Last night I sent a private e-mail to our Customer Service team in response to a customer complaint regarding her past orders and restaurant profile. My e-mail, which outlined how to resolve the customer issue, contained a bad joke which was very poor in taste. Subsequently, the bad joke was sent to the customer. What I said was a major lapse in judgement on my part. I deeply regret this.
I immediately reached out to the customer and offered my full and sincere apology. I would like to extend that same apology to all of our customers and Customer Service team. There is no excuse for this.
At Postmates we love and value our world-class Customer Service. We take great pride in our Customer Service team. However, with my comment I have not lived up to our own standards and also damaged my team’s reputation.
I cannot find the words to describe how much I value our customers and how deeply I care about them being happy. There is no excuse for this type of conduct.
I take full responsibility for my actions. I am sincerely sorry.
Bastian Lehmann
The difference here was, he didn't say "it was just a joke - you don't need to be offended" - which is a definite non-apology.
He's saying "it was intended as a joke", but then goes on to deliver a sincere apology, taking responsibility and saying that there's no excuse for his behavior.
Ever seen a web developer rant about how his client insists on a project's price, because his third-removed nephew could implement it in a weekend? Or a web designer having to use some gaudy color-palette, comic sans, animated gif, or feature like an on-page pageview-counter or marquee? I see it every day, and there is never some voice of opinion telling them to not vent.
The developer, designer, and this CEO can very well want the job or position. They want to make the client happy, but they are going to have to vent, at some point. Perhaps there are better ways of doing it, but in a sense, the vents are "a joke" and don't negate the fact the customer is still in good hands.
Not every failure needs a post-mortem. What do you want him to say: "We've determined that all employees -- including me -- need to attend sensitivity training to ensure that this does not happen again"? Or perhaps: "We will install filtering software to catch this kind of message before it ever reaches our customers in the future"?
No - it's not an operational failure to be picked at until a systemic solution is arrived at, it's a human failure. His failure specifically, and he acknowledges this.
He's human. Customers are frustrating as all get-out; you want to do the very best by them; and your best is NEVER good enough. Chances of this happening anywhere is non-zero, and there is no indication this incident has a frequency, so you can't really reduce it. Not to mention, it's pretty probable that he has learned his lesson and thus decreased the frequency of such incidents, but we won't know until, at least, the third time.
That's important when you're dealing with a systemic problem that needs some specific effort to reform or eliminate - which is not the case here. It's a solid and sincere apology, offered without reservation or blame for others, and clearly heartfelt. Most people seeing something like that are satisfied. Turning something decent into something obviously and needlessly formulaic actually undermines its quality.
"From January 2008 to September 2010, Elop worked for Microsoft as the head of the Business Division, responsible for the Microsoft Office and Microsoft Dynamics line of products, and as a member of the company's senior leadership team. It was during this time that Microsoft's Business Division released Office 2010.[15]"
Last night I sent a private e-mail to our Customer Service team in response to a customer complaint regarding her past orders and restaurant profile. My e-mail, which outlined how to resolve the customer issue, contained a bad joke which was very poor in taste. Subsequently, the bad joke was sent to the customer. What I said was a major lapse in judgement on my part. I deeply regret this. I immediately reached out to the customer and offered my full and sincere apology. I would like to extend that same apology to all of our customers and Customer Service team. There is no excuse for this.
At Postmates we love and value our world-class Customer Service. We take great pride in our Customer Service team. However, with my comment I have not lived up to our own standards and also damaged my team’s reputation.
I cannot find the words to describe how much I value our customers and how deeply I care about them being happy. There is no excuse for this type of conduct.
I take full responsibility for my actions. I am sincerely sorry. Bastian Lehmann