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I just read a paper called Trust recovery tactics after double deviation: better sooner than later?. In it, the authors try to determine the best reaction to a repeat failure from a service provider. Should they apologies immediately? Should a commitment  to non-recurrence,  come with the apology?

The first connection it made for me was in writing Major Incident Reports. Often contractually defined compensation will wait for the MIR, which is likely to need several levels of sign off before it can be shown to the customer. How much of a problem are delays here? Should an apology wait on the MIR? It might after all turn out after analysis that the service provider was not at fault.

This research relies on previous findings indicating that an apology admitting fault and a promise to avoid future recurrence is the most effective approach. So here, they are looking at the impact of timing. One interesting item from the literature review section was that third party endorsements, or compensation do nothing to restore trust.

The biggest shortcoming of the study seems to be that they used volunteers reading scenarios rather than real service consumers.

What they find is that an apology needs to come quickly, but it is better to delay with promises of doing better. The idea is that you show integrity by apologising quickly, while you want to show competence by doing the necessary analysis before promising the issue won’t occur again. If the apology and promise have to come together, then it is better to wait. Perhaps the insincerity of a quick promise undermines the apology.

The authors then cite other research warning that knee jerk apologies may appear insincere. That sounds like it might overlap with negotiation strategies discussed by Chris Voss in Never Split the Difference – name the elephant in the room, and get them to say “that’s right”.

Natalia Araujo Pacheco, Cristiane Pizzutti, Kenny Basso, Yves Van Vaerenbergh, (2018) “Trust recovery tactics after double deviation: better sooner than later?”, Journal of Service Management,