Answering a Curt or Demanding Message

Imagine a music teacher named Tobias Wren who teaches violin to Imogen Ashworth, who is 11. In January he takes on the exam accompanying at a school on Thursdays, so he moves Imogen’s lesson to Wednesday. He tells Imogen at the end of a lesson and asks her to tell her mother. On the Thursday evening, Mrs. Ashworth emails him. “Tobias, Imogen says her lesson is now on Wednesdays. Nobody asked us, and Wednesday is her swimming. I expect it back on Thursdays from next week, and I would like to know why we heard this from an 11-year-old. Vanessa Ashworth.”

Tobias reads it on his phone between two students, and his face goes hot. He writes back in four minutes. He says he is so sorry, that he did ask Imogen to pass it on, and that he assumed she had. He explains the school, the exams, and that Thursdays were the only day the school could offer. He adds that in 15 years of teaching he has done his best for every family. He will see what he can do about Thursdays, he writes, and he is sorry again for the confusion.

Mrs. Ashworth reads a reply three times the length of her message. It tells her how the change came about, which she did not ask, and it blames her daughter a little. It does not say when Imogen’s lesson is. She writes back, “Fine. Let me know.” Imogen keeps her Wednesday lessons that term, because the swimming moves. In the summer, Mrs. Ashworth asks the school’s head of music for a name, and tells a friend that Tobias “went on the defensive.”

Suppose instead that Tobias reads the message, puts the phone in his bag, and teaches the next lesson. At six, at his desk, he reads it again. What Mrs. Ashworth wants is her Thursday back, and to hear about changes from him. The first he cannot give, and the second she is right about. He writes four sentences. “Dear Mrs. Ashworth, you are right that the change should have come from me, and I am sorry it did not. Thursdays from January are taken by the exam accompanying at St. Bride’s, so I cannot offer Imogen her old time. I have Wednesday at four, before swimming, or Thursday at seven. Which would you like? Tobias Wren.” Mrs. Ashworth writes back the same evening, “Thursday at seven, thank you.” Imogen keeps her teacher.

Tobias had the same Thursday problem both times, and Mrs. Ashworth sent the same message. What changed was when he answered and what he answered. The first reply was written inside the heat of the message, and it answered the tone with an explanation. The second was written after the heat had gone, and it answered the two facts in the message. Here is why the first minutes write a reply you would not choose. Then here is what the reply looks like when you wait.

A curt message is catching, and the first reply carries it

In 2016, Trevor Foulk and two colleagues at the University of Florida published three studies in the Journal of Applied Psychology. The studies were about whether rudeness spreads from one person to the next, the way a cold does. It does. In the first study, a single rude exchange was enough. The person on the receiving end carried it into their next conversation, with someone who had nothing to do with it. Anyone could pass it on. The second and third studies looked for the reason. A rude exchange puts rudeness at the front of a person’s mind. From there it shapes what they do next, toward hostility.

Those were people at work and in a lab, and the step to your inbox is the course’s own. Here is the step. A curt message puts its own tone at the front of your mind for a while. Your next words come out more hostile than you would choose. Tobias’s first reply was not hostile on its face. It was defensive, which is hostility with an apology in front of it. The message had made him an opponent for four minutes, and he answered as one.

Going over the message does not cool it down

In 2002, Brad Bushman published an experiment in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. He made people angry. Then one group hit a punching bag while thinking about the person who had angered them. A second group hit the bag while thinking about getting fit. A third group did nothing. Afterward, each person had the chance to blast the person who had angered them with loud noise. The group that hit the bag while going over who had angered them was the angriest, and it blasted the loudest. The group that thought about something else blasted less, and the group that did nothing least of all. In his words, “Doing nothing at all was more effective than venting anger.”

Those were people in a lab with a punching bag, and the step to your desk is the course’s own. Here is the step. Typing the reply you would like to send, to get it out of your system, is hitting the bag. The client is the person in your mind while you hit it. Reading the message over, and rehearsing what you will say, is the same. Each pass through it feeds the heat. What cooled the people in the experiment was time with their attention somewhere else. For a professional between appointments, that is the next piece of work. Tobias taught a lesson, and when he came back the message was two facts and a question.

A photographer tells other photographers to wait until morning, then call

Jessica Whitaker is a photographer who teaches other photographers how to run a photography business. In April 2021 she published a post on the client who writes to say they are unhappy with their photos. Her scene is an email at 11 at night, after hours of editing. Her first instruction is “Do not respond right away.” The reason, she writes, is that “responses tend to trigger unnatural reactions.” She wants the photographer to “wait until regular business hours or the next morning to respond.” Her rule is in one sentence. “We do not run our business on emotion.”

Her next instruction is the phone. A call is quicker than email, she writes, and it shows that you care. It also stops both sides from misreading tone. “When you read their initial email, you may have read it in a way that they never intended for it to be read.” On the call, she tells photographers to “make it clear that you are on their side.”

Measured against this lesson, her wait and her call are the method. The message she describes is about the work itself, and that is the kind that goes to the phone. What carries over to every curt message is her first instruction, and the reason she gives for it. The reply written at 11 at night is written by the email, not by the photographer.

A designer who coaches designers answers the fact and leaves out how it happened

Kate Bendewald writes for interior designers about running a design business. In May 2024 she published eight strategies for when a job goes wrong, in answer to a listener of her podcast. The first is to buy time. “Before responding to a client or addressing the problem, you want to give yourself time to calm your brain so you can have clarity of mind.” What she sends in the meantime is a holding note. “I usually provide an immediate response acknowledging that I have received their message and schedule time within 24 hours to discuss in person or by phone.” She adds, “I do not advise getting into a text or email conversation with high-stakes.”

Her second strategy is the shape of the reply, and she gives it as a pair of sentences. The one to write is “I understand that you are concerned about the cost of the cabinetry.” The one not to write is “I told you that the original pricing was an estimate not a quote.” She does not say the second is false. “It’s not important to get fully into the details of how you got here, there will be time for that later.”

Her pair is the line this lesson draws. The first sentence says back what the client is concerned about. The second defends the designer, and the client did not ask for a defense. They asked about the cabinetry. Her 24 hours is her rule for a job that has gone wrong, when a call is coming anyway. For a curt message that only needs an answer, this lesson’s wait is shorter, and the steps say how short.

Two designers answer a rude client by not answering the rudeness

In 2019, Business of Home asked six interior designers how they deal with rude clients. Sasha Bikoff, a designer in New York, said that she does not take the bait. “I am in a client-based business, so I will never lose my cool or talk back. Most of the time I do not even acknowledge the rudeness and just keep on trucking.”

Denise Morrison, a designer in Newport Beach, California, hears about rude clients from her staff more than she meets them herself. Her answer is a call. She said that “whenever I hear that a client is being rude or demanding, I schedule a call with the client and talk through the concerns and expectations for our services.” She keeps it quick and gentle, “so that no one feels attacked.” Then she says what the call usually finds. “For the most part, there usually ends up being an aspect of the situation I am not totally clear on and we are able to work through it by discussing it.”

The two designers agree on the part that matters here. Neither one answers the tone. Bikoff goes on with the work as if the rudeness were not in the message. Morrison goes to the demand behind it, and most of the time finds something she did not know. The tone of Mrs. Ashworth’s email was not the point of it. Her Thursday was, and so was hearing about changes from an 11-year-old. A reply that answers those two and leaves the tone alone is the one both designers would send.

The reply has three parts, and three that stay out

The shape below is the course’s own, built from Bendewald’s pair of sentences. Each part answers something the client put in the message, and nothing they did not.

What the client asked for, said back. The first sentence shows the client that you took the message as a concern. That is how you would take a remark about your price. “You are right that the change should have come from me.” “You asked for the gallery by Friday.” Use the client’s own words where you can.

The fact. This is what is true and what will happen, said bare, the way a direct sentence is said. “Thursdays from January are taken, so I cannot offer Imogen her old time.” A fact the client will not like is still a fact, and it is firmer than any argument for it.

The next step or the choice. This is what happens now, with a date, or the two times the client can pick from. “I have Wednesday at four or Thursday at seven. Which would you like?” This is the sentence the client was waiting for, and in Tobias’s first reply it was missing.

Three parts stay out. The explanation of how it happened is a defense of a decision the client did not ask you to defend. The client takes it as one. The apology for something that was not wrong tells the client that you think it was. The sentence about the tone, however mild, turns a message about a lesson time into a message about manners. The client will answer that one instead. Where something on your side was wrong, say so in one sentence, once, and move to the fact.

Why answering the tone goes wrong

Imagine a dog walker named Priya Nair who walks a spaniel named Biscuit for Mr. Haldane. On a Wednesday he emails her. “Priya, Biscuit came back soaked and filthy again yesterday. That is the third time this month. I am not paying for a walk that ends with me washing the dog. Please sort it out.” Priya reads it at lunch and feels the heat of it. She has learned to wait, so she walks her afternoon dogs first and writes at five.

“Dear Mr. Haldane, you are right that Biscuit has come back wet three times, and I should have told you why. The river path has been flooded since the rain, and he goes in whatever I do. From this week I will take the park route on wet days and dry him in your porch before I leave. I would also ask that you raise this with me a little more politely in future. Priya.”

Mr. Haldane reads the last sentence twice, and it is the one he answers. “I’ll raise it however I see fit.” The park route works, and Biscuit comes home dry. In November, Mr. Haldane moves Biscuit to the walker his neighbor uses, and tells the neighbor that Priya “took offense.”

Priya waited, and her first four sentences were the reply. They said back what he asked, gave the fact about the river, and said what would change. The fifth sentence answered the tone, and the tone was the one part of his message that was not about the dog. The version that works stops at “before I leave.”

Leaving the tone unanswered is not letting the client walk over you

Many professionals read “do not answer the tone” and see a client learning that curt works. If the rudeness costs nothing, the next message will be ruder.

What the client learns from Tobias’s second reply is that the Thursday slot is gone. That is the firm part, and it did not move. Bikoff, who does not acknowledge the rudeness, is the same designer who will “never lose my cool or talk back.” She is not giving ground. She is declining a contest about manners, which is the one contest a client in their own house wins. The fact is where you hold your ground, and a fact needs no raised voice to hold it. A client who is curt in every message, over months, is a different question, about whether to keep the client. One reply does not settle it, and it is not asked to.

How to answer a curt or demanding message

1. Read the message once and close it. Do not reply, and do not start a draft, because each pass through the message feeds the heat. If it came by text, send the sentence that says when the answer comes, within the hour. For example, a personal trainer can write, “Hi Mark, I’ve seen this. I’ll come back to you properly by three, after my next session.” Then do the next piece of work.
2. Come back when you can read the message and see only what it asks. For most people that is after the next appointment, and the reply goes the same day. A message that arrives in the evening gets its reply in the morning. Before you write, put what the client wants in one sentence, and note whether anything on your side was wrong.
3. When the message is about work that went wrong, about money, or carries anger, write to ask when you can call. For example, an event planner can write, “Dear Mrs. Ellery, I have your note about the marquee. Could we speak this afternoon? I can call at two or at half past four.”
4. Write the reply in three parts. Say back what the client asked for, as a concern, in their words. Then give the fact and what will happen. Then give the next step with its date, or the choice between two. For example, a caterer can write, “You asked whether the dinner on the 12th can be for 30 instead of 24. It can, and the fee for the extra six is $540. I’ll send the new menu on Monday.”
5. Take out the explanation of how it happened and the apology for anything that was not wrong. Take out your years and every word about the tone. Where something on your side was wrong, say so once, in one sentence, before the fact. For example, a florist whose delivery was late can write, “The flowers should have been with you by nine, and they were not.” Then the fact and the next step follow.
6. Read the reply as the person the client will forward it to. If that person would see a professional defending themselves, cut again. Then send it.
7. Write on the client’s page what the message was about and what you answered. A second curt message on the same subject is the one to answer with a call.

Next: You will see the four questions a client is asking about you from the first meeting on. Can you do it, and will you do what you said? Are you on their side, and will you be the same next time?