Delivering bad news is about understanding that things will go wrong from time to time, you can’t stop it. Customers also know this and deep down understand. An upset reaction to bad news might make it not seem this way. 

Providing the right steps to resolution and how you will prevent it in the future are the big winners for keeping trust in the relationship. Delivering the news in the right way and showing how you can recover gives you a chance to show your true value.

As follows:

1. Have a plan of attack or an agenda. Don’t wing it!

2. Communication method: Face to face is the best followed by a virtual conference. However, this is not always practical unless there is a recurring meeting for this. If they need to know now this will be too slow. In that case, pick up the phone. Never use email! I think this is the worst possible mistake. You can follow up with an email post conversation but don’t initiate the news with email. Linking back to point 1, having an agenda adds to your credibility

3. Be honest, don’t lie. People aren’t stupid.

4. Tell them what has happened. Acknowledge and paraphrase the impact to the client to show understanding and demonstrate empathy.

5. Explain why it happened. 

6. Provide the immediate solution on what we are doing to move forward.

7. Demonstrate what we are doing to prevent it from happening again.

8. Follow through, give updates.

Please leave your comments below if you found any of this useful or other methods that work for you.