Handling difficult conversations and bad news

As much as we don’t want it and we would do anything we can do avoid coming to a point where we have to have a difficult conversation with a customer, or deliver bad news, sometimes it is inevitable. As you go through a lot with your customers, especially the ones you have retained for many years, it is likely that for some reason, and at some point in their journey with you, something will come up which will require a tough conversation to be had.

The beauty and the curse of being in Customer Success is that you can and should participate in any communication going out to your clients and the messaging around it. This sometimes means that even if someone else in your company messed up, it might end up being you driving that conversation or at least being a part of it and planning on its messaging internally.

One of the most difficult things for us as human beings, is to master the ability to talk about bad things as well and as easily as we can talk about good things (and this can apply to anything in life, really). It is in our nature to tend to avoid such conversations and to try and avoid them as much as possible.

However, when you are faced with a situation like that, the worst thing you can do is pour more oil to the fire by trying to put things under the carpet, delivering the message with ambiguity or partially, or even worse, not delivering the bad message at all and hoping it will work itself out. Below are a few things to be mindful of, when it comes to handling such conversations.

1. Make it a meeting as much a possible. Of course hiding behind an email may seem easier for you, but a meeting and actually getting in front of the customer is really what you are after if you have bad news to deliver. Nothing replaces face time, you are not letting them interpret the email with “the voice in their head” as opposed to listening to you explaining. Ultimately giving them the time and walking them through the situation is much better appreciated when you are about to deliver bad news.
2. Deliver the news using facts and arguments, not emotions and guesses. Have an internal sync with all involved parties ahead of time. Align on messaging and who says what. Make sure you have answers to all the possible customer questions that may come out of the conversation. Be more prepared walking into a meeting where you know things can get rough, than you would normally prepare. Deliver the message only based on facts and arguments. Do not add vagueness to it in any way.
3. Have the bad conversation as soon as possible. No matter their initial reaction, you customer will appreciate that you told them about the bad news early, so at least they have some time to consider a plan B or a different solution.
4. Be as neutral as possible in how you deliver the news. The last thing you want or need here is to add your own emotions to the mix. You likely won’t know (but may have some anticipation) about how the customer might react to the information, so you want to just focus on giving them all the info you have, as clearly and as concisely as possible, leaving out anything that is not relevant.
5. Make sure you are delivering the entire message and truth, do not try to minimize it. One of the worst things you can do in delivering bad messages to a customer is to try and make things looks “less bad” than they really are, being afraid of their reaction. This can lead to a chain of events where in subsequent situations they discover the remaining bits and pieces of the bad news. What this would do for the client, is, it would make them re-live the bad experience of hearing the bad news over and over again, and that’s very bad. In addition, it will make their disappointment very high and their confidence in you very low.
6. Offer a solution or present how you are going to remedy the situation. It is very important that when you are delivering bad news, you come to the table with a “BUT”. This BUT, refers to “we have a bad situation here, BUT this is what we are doing/going to do to get out of this situation”. This will help the customer understand that they have a way out of this situation and you are going to work hard to help them get to that solution.
7. Let the customer process, digest and make up their mind about it. Pace yourself as you deliver the bad news. Do not talk fast, as this unconsciously adds stress for the person listening, and you don’t want anything that can escalate the situation any further. Pause for a bit each time it makes sense, however, set the expectation before you start talking, that you would like to be heard fully before they ask you any questions. This would prevent the conversation from going sideways and off-track, which may end up in a very bad outcome in itself, like a big misunderstanding.
8. If you face a storm reaction, stay calm. You likely might be able to guess how the client may react, but truly, you will have no clue until the conversation actually happens. If they burst in anger and say a few bad things about you or the product you are offering to them, I know this could be a trigger for you to respond back (with good intentions). However, when you are in the middle of a heated conversation, any kind of response to something said in affect and especially with bad emotions, will likely reinforce the angry person to keep going and will lead to an argument. If there is a “hot head” in the conversation, there needs to be at least one person staying calm and keeping it under control, and this is no less but something that’s expected of you. I know it may be the hardest thing to do, but it will surely save you from more future headaches.
9. Do not apologize, but express concern. As much as this may sound counter-intuitive or opposite of your thinking when you find yourself in a bad situation, try to resist from apologies. Simply deliver the message clearly and concisely, in the most neutral and most polite way possible, present a solution, and leave it at that. Apologizing would likely be taken as a sign of you admitting blame for the situation and would be taken completely differently by an angry customer. To a person dealing with bad or angry emotions, your apology really means nothing, so focus on offering a solution and express your concern about the situation. Showing empathy and that you really care and are not taking what happened lightly, will go a much longer way than saying “I am very sorry”. I would leave the apology for a later meeting where the issue is well behind you and you are having a follow up in a much more relaxed setting.
10. Do not overpromise or offer fake or impossible solutions to make things look better. The customer may challenge you or even push you into thinking of offering solutions that are not realistic, in order for the situation to be resolved faster. They are doing this because they would likely think you messed up, and it is on you to do something impossible to fix it, and also because likely they are going to get some internal pressure for the situation as well, and they would want to show internally that they “made you do it” a certain way. In such situations, being realistic and not committing to something you are not sure about, or something you know is not possible or is a stretch, is how you are actually helping them the most. They may not be seeing that at the moment because they are angry, but they will see it when they reflect on it. This can really take a partnership far and build those long-term trusted relationships. But when you have a client whose head is suddenly steaming with bad news, you want to be realistic and reasonable, say No to what’s not possible, and guard the situation from further escalation.
11. Encourage questions to be asked. Be open to talk about the problem and the news you just delivered. That would show the client that they can still trust you, that you have nothing to hide and that you are really helping them fully understand what’s going on. The better they understand what really is happening and how it’s going to be solved, the more you secure their buy-in and reassure them that things are still under control.
12. Stay connected more often than usual. Until the situation is fully resolved and even for some time after, you would want to stay closer to this customer, check in more often and make sure everything is done and resolved completely, they are happy, and there are no issues left. So prepare yourself for a good follow up and stay on top of the situation.

AN EXAMPLE:
“Thanks for trusting us to be your partner for this project and the upcoming launch related to it. [POLITE OPENING]
I regret to inform you that we will not be able to deliver your project by this Friday. Our team originally thought that this would be possible, but it turns out we will need some additional time because of the higher complexity on some of the items which required more processing per item. [CLEAR AND CONCISE DELIVERY OF THE BAD NEWS SHOWING OWENRSHIP OF RESPONSIBILITY. SOME ADDITIONAL CONTEXT ON THE LIMITATIONS AND REASONS WHY THIS HAPPENED, BASED ON FACTS AND ARGUMENTS.]
I understand that this is related to your launch and it will delay some plans on your side. [EXPRESSION OF CONCERN] We have arranged for our team to focus fully and exclusively on this project in the coming days, in order for us to be able to complete this delivery within the shortest time possible. [CLEARLY OUTLINED SOLUTION]
We expect to be able to deliver the project by Wednesday next week. [HIGHLY CONFIDENT IN THE NEWLY SET EXPECTATIONS]
If there is anything we can do to support you, we are more than happy to do that. Let’s go through any questions you might have about this situation so we can be fully aligned. [AGAIN, EXPRESS CONCERN, REASSURE, ENCOURAGE QUESTIONS]”

Fixing the bad experience for the long term
One bad experience usually takes on average 5 positive experiences in a row, in order for the lost trust to be re-gained by the customer. So after going through a situation like this, do not take it for granted that after the bad situation is fixed, you are all set. There will still be a lot of work you and your team would need to do in order to bring the partnership back to a good place and to make sure they can trust you fully with their future plans. You need to prove to them that what happened was a one-off situation, not a pattern you are getting into with them, because that’s where you can truly lose the client.