How to Apologize: Groupon CEO Taking Responsibility for a Customer Service Snafu

Groupon is a fantastic app that features a daily discount for various businesses around the world. Some of the deals are really quite extraordinary. Recently Groupon featured a major discount to a restaurant delivery service in Tokyo for the New Year. Selling more than 500 “Groupons,” the promotion was wildly successful.  Unfortunately, a customer service “nightmare” took place. The restaurant was not prepared for success and couldn’t accommodate all of the orders. Deliveries were late, and many of them were in “terrible condition.”

Who do you blame for this?

The restaurant or Groupon? My first thought is that the restaurant should have been prepared. Yet Andrew Mason, the CEO of Groupon, took responsibility as well. He acknowledged that he sold to an organization that was not prepared to deal with the success of the Groupon promotion. While the restaurant did fail to provide service to its customers, Groupon did give the consumers a full refund and gave away vouchers for future business.

To avoid customer service issues like this in the future, Groupon has started educating its customers on ‘capacity planning.’ It appears that Groupon is going to make sure their customers are able to deliver to their customers (the consumer). This is good for everyone involved.

Mason took this further and then created a video featuring a public apology for the incident. It was sincere, informative and explained exactly what happened and held nothing back. It is a wonderful example of how an individual or company should respond in customer service situations like this. 

Thank you to Andrew Mason and Groupon for taking responsibility and teaching us a great customer service lesson.

Shep Hyken is a customer service/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep’s customer service and customer experience keynote speeches and his customer service training workshops at www.Hyken.com. Connect with Shep on LinkedIn.

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