Apologize With Intent

© 2023 HMP Global. All Rights Reserved.
Any views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and/or participants and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of The Dermatologist or HMP Global, their employees, and affiliates. 

My wife and I drove to the airport and left our car with the valet parking service for a week. We have an electric car, and the parking service charges it while we travel. At least they are supposed to. We recently returned from a trip to a car that was not charged and did not have enough juice to make it home. That was frustrating.

I complained to a manager. I was tired and anxious to get home after the long trip; I needed to get some rest before clinic the next morning. The manager apologized that they had missed charging our car and explained that charging is on a “first come, first served” basis, so they do not always have the time to get every car charged. That answer left me feeling infuriated.

I was already angry that they had let me down by not charging the car. Now I was furious because the manager, in attempting service recovery, had not taken the time to consider the specifics of my situation. We had left the car with them for a week; they had plenty of time to get it charged.

We all work hard to give patients great medical care. This issue provides updates on psoriasis, toenail dystrophy, and actinic keratoses that will help us do that. But every now and then, despite our best efforts and perhaps out of our control, something is going to go wrong, and patients may feel hurt. When that happens, an apology is in order. The apology should reflect the specifics so that patients know we care about them. Adding in why it happened and what we will do to minimize the chance that it will happen again is good practice, too.