Tips for Delivering Bad News to a Client as a Landscaping Company

Goals and Potential Barriers to Communication in this Scenario

You must invent a company and deliver bad news to a client or customer about the service you provide. Here are the details: You own a landscaping company and have been doing the landscaping for a large commercial building owned by a local developer. You hope that if this contract goes well, you will be able to get additional work from this developer. Unfortunately, the project has run into problems. The project is running late due to weather and delays in receiving materials. You are also having issues with your crew. One person has quit unexpectedly and another broke her arm while biking. In addition, costs are going up for two reasons. One, the client keeps wanting to make changes to the design, which adds a lot of extra work. As well, the costs of plants and shrubs has increased due to the exchange value of the dollar. To complete the project, you have to either increase the overall price for the client or make compromises in the overall design. Your goal is to retain the client and keep a good working relationship with them, despite the bad news. Instructions:

1. Identify your goals and potential barriers to communication in this scenario.

2. Write and include a brief outline of the letter you need to write

3. Write this as a formal letter. You should include letterhead and other features to make the letter as professional and ‘real’ as possible.

4. Write the letter and save it to Moodle as indicated above.