Apologies represent a common strategy to respond to crises or product/service failures. In five experiments, involving different failures, we show that projecting lower competence in a specific, non-core domain of activity provides a significant boost to apology effectiveness. A projection of lower competence, operationalized as a lack of skills or expertise required to effectively execute a specific task, increases the perceived costliness of the apology because the organization accepts a symbolic cost. Perceived costliness, in turn, increases the perceived sincerity of the apology and leads to more favorable responses. This strategy, however, is effective only under certain circumstances and can backfire if misapplied. First, organizations might project lower competence only when stakeholders have no other reason to question their competence. Second, projecting lower competence is effective only when the failure is not relevant to the core business. Finally, the strategy is not effective for consumers with low communal relationship orientation.

道歉代表了应对危机或产品/服务故障的常见策略。在涉及不同失败的五个实验中，我们表明在特定的非核心活动领域投射较低的能力可以显着提高道歉的有效性。由于组织接受了象征性的成本，因此缺乏有效执行特定任务所需的技能或专业知识而导致能力下降的预测会增加道歉的成本。反过来，感知成本高昂会增加道歉的诚意，并导致更有利的回应。然而，这种策略仅在某些情况下有效，如果应用不当，可能会适得其反。首先，只有当利益相关者没有其他理由质疑他们的能力时，组织才会表现出较低的能力。其次，只有在失败与核心业务无关时，才能发挥较低的能力。最后，该策略对公共关系导向低的消费者无效。