When Mistakes Happen.

This contributor post was written by Tiffany Han.

I recently made a mistake.

{Are you still with me? Of course you are! We ALL make mistakes.}

Every month, on the 5th, I ship my Love Letters project. Last month, I realized on Saturday, February 23 that I had failed to ship one of my orders.

Big oops. I felt terrible. But I still acted.

Rather than let myself get paralyzed by the gaffe, I sent an email to the customer right away letting her know what happened and what I intended to do to remedy it.

Here’s the email:

Here’s why it worked:

1. Admit the mistake. Immediately.
I 100% admitted what happened and apologized. Start with an apology and an explanation. Short and sweet. No excuses. Just the truth. (Note: you can explain without over-explaining.)

2. Fix it.
What is your solution to the problem? Note that I didn’t offer choices – I decided what the best solution would be and went with it, explaining to the customer what I was going to do to rectify the situation.

3. Make it right.
Payment refunded, no questions asked. Upgraded shipping, no questions asked. When you are running damage control, be as preemptive as possible in your solutions building.

4. Examine the system.
When a mistake is made, you must be willing to look into what systems (or lack thereof) caused it to happen in the first place. I didn’t have a good orders tracking system in place, hence, the oversight. By examining the root of the mistake, you can take steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

Moral and outcome: I sent the email, and shipped the package on Monday as promised. I heard from my customer on Monday night with the email: “Thanks Tiffany. You rock!”

You can’t always control your customers’ reactions when things go wrong, but by having plans in place for how to handle them when they do, you can be sure that you, as a creative business owner, are showing up in integrity and handling things the way they need to be handled.

Any mistake stories to share? Do you have any creative “make it right” strategies that have worked for you in your business?

Tiffany Han, CPCC is a life & business coach for highly-creative people who arent living the highly-creative lives they want. Just yet. With provocative questions & hard-edged encouragement, Tiffany helps skittish someday-ers become fiercely focused creators “” and proves that dreams do come true. But only when you demand it.