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How to deliver bad news to a client

Lead with the news. Everything you put in front of it reads as a stall.

The situation

The number is worse, the date has moved, or the thing they were counting on will not happen. Your draft opens with two paragraphs of background because that feels kinder.

It is not. A client reading around for the actual news is doing work you should have done, and the delay reads as evasion the moment they find it.

Why it is hard

Burying bad news is a politeness strategy that misfires in writing. In conversation, preamble gives the listener time to adjust; in email the reader scans for the point, finds it in paragraph three, and retrospectively reads everything before it as management. Leading with the news and following with the plan reverses that: the reader knows where they stand by line two and reads the rest as help rather than as cushioning.

What to actually write

Two versions of the same message. Same facts, different posture — which one is right depends on the relationship, not on which is “better”.

THE DIPLOMATLong-term client, recoverable situation

Subject: Migration slipping to the 27th — plan inside

Hi Dana,

The migration will not be done by the 20th. The new date is the 27th.

We found a data-integrity issue in the legacy records that has to be resolved before cutover — shipping on time would have meant shipping it into your live system.

What this does not change: budget, scope, and your team's access throughout. I will send a daily one-liner until we are through it, and I have 15 minutes any morning this week if you want to talk.

— Sam

THE VETERANClient who prefers no ceremony

Subject: Migration date moving to the 27th

Hi Dana,

Not going to make the 20th. New date is the 27th.

Data-integrity issue in the legacy records — has to be fixed before cutover or it lands in your live system.

Budget and scope unchanged. Daily update from me until it is done.

— Sam

Common questions

Should I call instead?

For anything that changes money or a committed date, send the email first so they have it in writing, then offer the call. Do not use a call to avoid putting it on record.

How much detail about the cause?

Enough to show the delay is being spent on their behalf. Beyond that it becomes self-justification.