"I'm worried this will make the customer panic"

A delivery is late, and the customer success lead wants to send a large account a direct email resetting expectations. Someone from sales says: "I'm worried this will make the customer panic."

The quick answer is "It's better to be transparent. They'll appreciate the honesty." That may be true. It also doesn't touch the worry.

Our research piece on this suggests one question first. "What are you picturing going wrong?"

In the example we use, the answer is specific. The fear is that the customer reads the email as the project sliding out of control and escalates to leadership before anyone can explain the recovery plan. That's a narrower problem than "honesty is scary," and it has a different fix.

Then pull it apart. How likely is it? How bad would it be? How easy to undo? Here the answers were moderately likely, high impact because a leadership escalation changes the tone of the account, and recoverable but slower than a normal correction.

Now there's something to answer. The email has to show control, so it opens with the recovery path, the new date and the decision already made to prevent a repeat. If you can't write that yet, the worry was right and the email isn't ready.

One more bit from the write-up that's easy to skip. "It just feels risky" isn't irrational. If someone can't name a scenario, ask what past situation this reminds them of. That usually gets to the real fear faster than talking about probabilities.

The longer version: naming the feared downside before you reassure someone.

Grais · m@grais.ai