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Comment by ziddoap | Hacker News Reader

Clear, detailed but accessible, plans in place moving forward, apology read sincerely, providing support to affected customers immediately, and answering follow up questions to technical users who are interested in more detail.

A+ job on handling the unfortunate situation, Monzo.

We can only hope more companies follow this great example.

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Every time I see a company say "we're sorry" I can't help but think about the South Park episode where the BP CEO says "we're sorry!" It's either that or the one with the Time Warner employees with the nursing flaps in their shirts.

Using "we" in any public announcement, writeup, blog post, etc. is always in danger of sounding contrived.

Personally, I prefer something written in a relaxed style rather than a formal-voice only in most cases, especially for blog posts.

Formal only generally comes across, to me, as cold and distant. Great for a persuasive essay or other mediums where you want to remove the topic from the author, not so great for communicating with your audience and wanting to come across as sincere.

If anything, a strict formal-voice only blog post would come across, to me, as contrived.

To each their own.

I'm not advocating for formal over relaxed. I find blog posts work best in a relaxed style from the first person singular. This sort of apology should come from an individual at the top, and make reference to the whole team. You're probably right about personal differences though.

> Time Warner employees with the nursing flaps in their shirts.

I had to look that one up: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x15ij62 (3min)

Not to take away from their good communication, but they are still relatively small. If they keep this up while growing, then they might have some secret sauce.

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