Customers don’t need performative empathy

“I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”

“I’m sorry to hear about the frustrating experience you’re having.”

I cringe so hard when I see these words coming from customer service. ✨They ✨mean ✨nothing.

On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with these sentences. But as someone who has worked inside multiple tech companies, those lines signal one of three things to me: either an over-reliance on AI templates, a burnt out team, or a problem that’s happened so many times the company has normalized it instead of fixing it.

There’s no ownership. No real validation. It feels passive.

Now compare that to this actual message I received recently, in the middle of a genuinely chaotic situation:

“Zeina, I’m really sorry you’ve had to go through all of this today — having your flight canceled, the app not working, and then your reservation disappearing would stress anyone out. I completely understand why you’re feeling overwhelmed right now. You’re connected with me now, and I’m going to take care of this for you. You won’t need to keep trying the app — I’ll handle everything from here and make sure you get clear next steps.”

That response shaved hours of stress off my nervous system because it did three things most scripted apologies don’t:

✨ It named the actual problem.
✨ It validated the emotional impact.
✨ It took ownership of the next step.

Good service isn’t about sounding polite. It’s about reducing uncertainty and making the customer feel heard.

If you’re a leader reading this, audit your scripts. Audit your bots. Audit your training. Are your teams taught to acknowledge the problem specifically? To restate context? To explicitly assume ownership? Or are they taught to apologize generically and move on to the troubleshooting steps?

Customers don’t need performative empathy. They need to feel contained. That’s what builds trust, revenue loyalty, and customer advocacy.