The time a barista called out a brand apology and it stuck with me

I was grabbing coffee in Austin last month and this barista goes 'that brand apology yesterday was just fancy wording for we got caught.' They broke down how the company said 'we hear you' but literally changed nothing for 6 months. Has anyone else noticed brands using the same 3 apology phrases over and over?

3 comments

3 Comments

dianal941mo ago

they really do recycle the same 3 lines like 'we hear you' 'we're sorry you felt that way' and 'we're committed to doing better' and its so obvious they just copy paste from each other. the barista was spot on, those apologies are basically corporate speak for 'we got caught and we hope you forget about it in a week'. the worst part is when they drop one of those statements but then go completely silent for months until the next scandal hits. like if you were really sorry you'd actually show some change not just throw out a press release. its gotten to the point where i just roll my eyes every time i see a brand apologize because 9 times out of 10 its empty.

riley_schmidt23d ago

oh man the "we're sorry you felt that way" one gets me every time. it's like they're apologizing for your feelings not for what they actually did wrong. i remember a coffee chain had that whole thing a couple years back where they treated employees badly and their statement basically said "we're sorry if anyone was upset" and i was just like... thats not an apology lol. and yeah the silence after always kills me too. they'll drop one of those empty things and then its radio silence until the next story pops up and they need to pretend again. makes you wonder why they even bother with the whole apology charade when we all know its fake anyway.

mila_flores81mo ago

Read a breakdown recently that analyzed 50 brand apologies and found over 80% used the exact same phrases @dianal94 mentioned. The most common was 'we hear you' which is funny because they clearly don't hear anything until sales drop. It's basically a script now, just fill in the brand name and scandal.