Occasionally, businesses must announce bad news to their customers or employees. For example, a company might need to announce that prices are going up, that a service or product line is being discontinued, or that a branch of the business is closing. Or a company might need to tell its employees that the company is in some kind of trouble, that people will need to be laid off, or, as in the Problem-Solving Challenge above, that employees will contribute more to the cost of their health insurance. These negative
announcements usually follow the general indirect plan discussed in this chapter.
Determine the Strategy
- In most cases the indirect arrangement will be better. This route is especially recommended when it is reasonable to expect that the readers would be surprised, disappointed, or even angered by a direct presentation. When planning an indirect announcement, you need to think about what kind of buffer opening to use, what kind of explanation to give, how to word the news itself, and how to leave your readers feeling that you have considered their interests and made a good decision.
Setting Up the Buffer
- As with the preceding negative message types, you should plan your indirect beginning (buffer) carefully. You should think through the situation and select a buffer that will set up or begin the explanation that justifies the announcement. Perhaps you will begin by presenting justifying information. Or maybe you will start with complimentary or cordial talk focusing on the good relationship that you and your readers have developed. Choose the option that will most likely prepare your reader to accept the coming bad news.
Presenting the Justification and Bad News
- In most cases, the opening paragraph will enable you to continue with background reasons or explanations in the next paragraph, before you present the bad news. Doing so will help you de-emphasize the bad news by locating it in the middle of the paragraph rather than at the beginning.
- AS in Other negative situations, you should use positive words and an objective tone and avoid unnecessary negative comments when presenting the news itself. Since this is an announcement, however, you must make certain that you cover all the facts. People may not be expecting this news. They will want to know the reasons for the situation. They also want to know that you have done all you can to ease the effects of the bad news, so you will need to provide evidence that this is true. If the readers must do something, the steps must be clearly covered as well. All questions that may come to the readers’ minds should be anticipated and covered, too.
Focusing on Next Steps or Remaining Benefits
- In many cases, negative news will mean that things have changed. Customers may no longer be able to get a product that they have relied upon, or employees may have to find a way to pay for something that they have been getting for free. For this reason, a negative announcement will often need to help people solve the problem that your news just created for them. In situations where you have no further help to offer-for example, when announcing certain price increases-you can still help people feel better about your news by calling attention to the benefits that they will continue to enjoy. You can focus on the good things that have not changed and perhaps even look ahead to something positive or exciting on the horizon.
Closing on a Positive or Encouraging Note
- The ending should cement your effort to cover the matter positively. The ending should not include an apology or continued discussion of the bad news. Instead, you can use a positive look forward, a sincere expression of gratitude, or an affirmation of your positive relationship with your readers.
Reviewing the Pattern for Negative Announcements
- To write a negative-news announcement, you will do the following:
- Start with a buffer that sets up justification for the bad news.
- Present the justification for the bad news
- Give the bad news objectively, positively, and clearly.
- Help solve the problem that the news may have created for the reader.
- End with appropriate goodwill
