How do I deliver bad news to a customer?

Hello and welcome back to Startup Curious, where we discuss things you should know if you’re thinking about working for or starting a startup.

My voice is still a little weak, so we’ll be doing another quick one today: tips for delivering bad news to a customer. Try as we might, occasionally we will all over promise and underdeliver when it comes to a new feature or have downtime go on longer than expected… occasionally disappointing customers is inevitable.

However, the way you deliver the bad news can really make or break your longer term relationship with the customer (or customers if it’s a widespread issue). Here are some tips for minimizing damage:

1. Be communicative. If you’re dealing with an ongoing issue, make sure to update the set of affected customers every hour or two… even if you don’t have much to say. “We’re still working on this and want to apologize again for the inconvenience” can go a long way.

2. Take ownership of the issue. There’s a big difference between receiving a message where the company is taking ownership of an issue they caused vs receiving one where it feels like the issue just sort of happened and the company is shrugging its shoulders and trying to avoid taking the blame. It’s much more reassuring to get a message where the company is taking ownership - and customers will remember when it happens.

3. Be empathetic. Whatever the issue is, whether it’s downtime, a bug, or a deprioritized feature, it’s causing a problem for your customer. Acknowledge the inconvenience and be apologetic. 

All of that sounds straightforward, but when you’re in a stressful situation, it can be surprisingly hard to craft a good message! You may even end up with the opposite problem - the stress may make every message sound bad, even ones that are perfectly fine. Try not to let perfect be the enemy of good here. Sending almost any message is better than not sending one at all!

Okay, that’s where we’ll end for today. I’ll likely revisit this topic in a bit more depth later, but hopefully this helps if you end up facing this situation in the meantime! 

Thank you for joining us today! If you found this episode useful, please remember to subscribe and share. Our goal is to make startups more approachable for everyone and the only way we can do that is to get the word out!

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If you have a topic you’d like to learn more about, or you’re a founder who would like their story featured on this show, send me an email at v@thescrappyoperator.com.