AmiSight 1/23: What Happened When the Olive-Oil Start-Up Apologized

I love this story of Graza, a start-up that has turned squeezable bottles of extra-virgin olive oil into hot kitchen staples, delighting people who never knew they could have strong feelings about healthy liquid fat. But, unfortunately, some customers were disappointed when their holiday gifts arrived late and were badly packaged.

Mr. Benin, their CEO, decided to handle the crisis his way. He had felt that he should apologize. Instead of trying to curtail the problem and limit the situation to the impacted clients, he sent an email titled "learning from our own mistakes" to about 36,000 customers who had ordered over the last 60 days. The transparency and honesty worked – and there is a lesson in it for all of us.