You’ve probably said it without thinking:
“Sorry for the wait.”
“Sorry that took a little longer.”
“Sorry we had to transfer you.”
You want your customer to feel heard. An apology seems like a kind, polite way to show you care.
But what if your customer thought everything was going just fine?
Research published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that an apology can sometimes leave customers less satisfied. The reason is surprisingly simple: you may be pointing out a problem they hadn’t noticed.
That gives you something to think about the next time you review your team’s scripts.
Researchers Mason R. Jenkins, Paul W. Fombelle, and Mary Steffel worked with a food delivery company to study how customers responded to apologies for late orders.
The final sample included 3,083 customers whose deliveries arrived up to 15 minutes late. It excluded customers who had called to ask about or complain about their order, along with those who had other recorded order problems.
During one period, staff called customers when a delay was expected. They apologized and assured customers their food was on the way. During the comparison period, staff didn’t make those calls.
You might expect the extra attention to encourage customers to come back.
The results went the other way.
Within 90 days, 74.8% of customers who received an apology ordered again, compared with 78.8% of those who didn’t. That’s a difference of four percentage points.
Among customers who returned, those in the apology group also placed fewer orders and spent less during that period.
There are a couple of limits to keep in mind. The company used separate time periods for the two approaches, and the researchers couldn’t directly establish which customers had already noticed the delay.
So they used additional experiments to explore what might explain the results.
Across shopping simulations, delivery scenarios, and a survey with a loading delay, the researchers found support for a simple explanation.
An apology can make customers recognize an experience as a service failure.
Think about how that might happen during a call.
Suppose you put someone on hold while you check a detail. You return with the answer, and they’re happy to have it.
Then you say, “I’m so sorry that took so long.”
Until that moment, they may have seen the pause as a normal part of getting help. Your apology gives them a reason to reconsider.
Should it have been faster? Was there a problem?
That call example is hypothetical, but it illustrates the distinction the researchers explored. Your internal view of the service can be different from your customer’s experience.
You know the call ran past your target. Your customer knows you answered their question.
One experiment compared an apology with a simple notification about an updated delivery time.
Customers who received the apology were less satisfied than those who received the notification alone. Satisfaction in the notification group did not differ significantly from the group that received no message.
For your team, that suggests a useful place to start: explain what’s happening and what your customer can expect.
For example, if you need a moment to check an account, you could say:
“I’m checking that detail now. This will take about a minute.”
You’ve explained the pause and set an expectation. You haven’t described a routine step as something that went wrong.
If you’ve missed a promised callback, you have something different to address:
“I’m sorry we missed the callback time we gave you. I’ll check the status now and update you by 3 p.m.”
Here, you’re acknowledging a missed promise and giving the customer a next step.
These are suggested scripts, rather than wording tested in the paper. Any time you offer a deadline, make sure you can meet it.
You don’t need to take “sorry” out of your team’s vocabulary.
The research found that apologies could make a company seem warmer and more honest. When customers were explicitly made aware of the failure, the negative effect on satisfaction disappeared. The improvement in that experiment was modest and not statistically conclusive.
If your caller says, “You told me someone would call yesterday, and nobody did,” you already know they recognize the problem.
Acknowledge it. Give them a sincere apology. Then explain what you can do to help.
And remember that a customer can notice a problem without complaining. You can’t assume they’re happy just because they haven’t said otherwise.
Some problems also need to be disclosed regardless of whether the customer has noticed them. The authors recognize those responsibilities. You still need to be honest and fix what went wrong.
Take a look at your greeting, hold message, and follow-up email.
Where does your team say sorry?
For each apology, ask:
You may find an apology that fits the situation perfectly. You may also find a line that your team repeats out of habit.
Start there. Help your team choose words that fit the conversation in front of them.
When you do need to say sorry, give your customer a clear reason to feel confident about what happens next.
Research: Mason R. Jenkins, Paul W. Fombelle, and Mary Steffel, “Are Apologies Always the Best Policy? Apologies for Service Failures Backfire When Consumers Are Not Aware of the Failure,” Journal of Consumer Research. Published online December 3, 2025.