Productivity · Intermediate · about 17 minutes

Difficult conversations — bad news, complaints and saying no

The delivery will be two weeks late. You send an email that opens with three paragraphs of context, mentions the delay in the middle, and closes with 'we regret the inconvenience caused'. The customer reads it twice to work out what you are telling them, then calls, angry — as much about the burying as about the delay.

You need

News: A machine breakdown means a customer's 2,000-unit order ships 18 April instead of 4 April. Customer: retail chain, 4-year relationship, one of the top five accounts.

Tool

Any assistant, with the real facts

You get

This should be a call, followed by this message as the record. A top-five account, a four-year relationship, and a promotion of theirs is affected.

Time saved

Drafting from 30 minutes of anxious rewriting to about 5, with a much better structure.