Not sure if I'm a typical user here
But when I get mails like this from JCrew (or the recent NetFlix issue), it almost immediately increases my trust of the company - any company that's willing to come out and so broadly say "we made a mistake" is a company I am more likely to give my business to in the future.
I've categorized this post under "User Experience" because the UX doesn't end with the UI. Apologizing for when we mess up should just be a part of the user experience. Having great error messages is a part of the user experience. Making it simple and easy to get an answer to your question from the community or technical support is a part of the user experience. etc etc...
Comments
- Anonymous
August 01, 2008
I feel the same as well. Some months ago, I was buying computer parts from a website and waited several orders to arrive for several weeks and they failed everytime I called them to make the process go quicker. Some days later, all the customers received a similar e-mail from the company's CEO saying that the cause was platform change as well, but the nicest thing is that they added a 10% discount voucher code in the e-mail to use on the next order. Apologies are very nice but even with them, some customers may have decided to go away anyway, but few people like to disregard a 10% discount voucher that can be used against the total amount of your next order...