Love means never having to say you’re sorry. Leadership is never forgetting how powerful “I’m sorry” can be.
Unfortunately, in business, authentic, genuine apologies are few and far between. We’ve all seen those auto-responses on social media to complaints, which sometimes places the responsibility on the customer: “We’re sorry to hear you’re not satisfied.”

So, what makes for a “good” apology?

You don’t have to look far to find one. The viral note from Graza olive oil start-up founder Andrew Benin is a powerful example and well worth the read. When the company started receiving multiple complaints during the busy holiday gifts season – about everything from damaged containers and peeling wrappers to poor gift packaging, he decided to take the rare step of personally apologizing, sending a sincere note to every customer who had purchased from the year-old brand in the last 60 days.

All 35,544 of them.

The email didn’t go through corporate comms or even receive a good proofreading, but that didn’t diminish its message. Instead, the note came across as sincere, transparent, customer-first, and even witty. And, rather quickly I might add, it succeeded in building a valuable commodity for the young brand: Trust. (Not to mention reaching a 78% email open rate.)

According to a Wall Street Journal article, Benin believes in communicating “like a person, not a business, with a business tone. All you need to do is dig deep, reflect on all the things in marketing and brand communication that piss you off, and do the exact opposite.”

With his personal apology, Benin demonstrated and delivered exactly what we all crave these days — genuineness. It’s clear that he meant every word, sharing more details perhaps than necessary, but doing what every good apology must, to paraphrase Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy, authors of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry …

Say you’re sorry, acknowledge the wrongdoing with some specificity, share why it won’t happen again, and offer to make up for it.

If I had to put my finger on why Benin’s note resonated with me, it’s this. This is a CEO who cares. About his product. About his people. And, about his customers. First, he took a very commoditized offering in olive oil and turned it into a unique and sought-after brand. And when something went wrong — when that something had the potential to tarnish that brand — Benin leaned in to learning how to do better.

Full disclosure here: Before his apology went viral, I hadn’t even heard of Graza’s olive oil, but now I think I’m in love. Why? Because Benin and his response have engendered both curiosity and trust in me — and likely thousands of others — through his candor, humor, and humility. What shone through his apology was the caring of a human being, flaws and all.

Incidentally, Benin’s email didn’t include a link to Graza’s website. That was intentional. “This was not meant to drive traffic,” he said. “This was an apology. All that I thought was that I need to make myself available. It felt like the right thing to do.”

And that is the greatest leadership lesson of all.

PS: I actually did go ahead and order some Graza olive oil. If you’re curious about my experience with it, I’ll gladly share it once I’ve tried it. And, if I misstep or you feel something needs my attention (or an apology), I hope you’ll share that with me, too.