Q: I still get anxious whenever I get an e-mail from a client. Especially an e-mail with feedback in it. And the weird thing is — I’m the one who asked for the feedback! But when I open one of those e-mails, all I see is a giant wall of changes I need to make. So I avoid opening it. What can I do?

Relax. We got this. First off, take a deep breath.

No, I mean that literally. Opening your inbox is the modern office worker’s equivalent of opening King Tut’s tomb. Your inbox is full of things that have been gathering dust for eons. (At least mine is.)Our inbox contains both treasure and curse. Like a churro stand at the county faire placed right next to a port-a-potty. No wonder you avoid it.

But like I said, we got this. I’m gonna teach you how to actually read a client e-mail. Which they should have done in school.

For our purposes today, I’ve taken a few client e-mails and anonymized them for teaching purposes. These snippets bare no resemblance to actual projects, past or present.

Read the entire e-mail first

The first thing we’re going to do is read the e-mail in its entirety. Top to bottom. You’re not even going to take any notes. You’re just going to sit down in your favorite, most comfortable chair and read it all the way through. If you work in a room with other people, you will do this quietly and privately. If you get the urge to read any part of it aloud to your co-workers, swallow it. Just read quietly. When you’ve finished, take a temperature test. Are you hot? Angry? That’s ok. What matters is what comes next. If you’re angry, I want you to go for a walk. Got a dog? (You should get a dog.) This is a fine time to take the dog for a walk. If you smoke, go have a cigarette. (And then quit smoking. It’s a filthy habit. This includes vaping.) Under no circumstances are you replying to that e-mail or sharing it with your coworkers until you’ve done the following steps.

Acknowledge you received it

Send your client a short reply. This is all it says: “Thanks for sending feedback. Reading through it now. Will be in touch as soon as I’ve read through it a few times to make sure I’ve got it all.”

That’s it. That’s all it says. It relaxes the person on the other end. Let’s them know you’re on the case. And it’s absolutely true. (Never lie to a client. It’s stupid.)

Read the e-mail again

You’re going to read the e-mail again, just like you told the client you were going to. At this point, nothing in the e-mail will surprise you, because you’ve already read it. So you’ll be a little calmer.

Here’s why that walk was important: you need some empathy right now. You are a trained designer. You know how this stuff works. Your client most likely does not. And it’s wrong to expect that they’ll give you your feedback exactly how you want them to, even if you give them fantastic feedback guidelines. And you’re going to remember two very important things:

They hired you because you can do something they can’t

You’re the pro here.

After your second reading you’ll probably have co-workers swarming around your desk asking “what does it say?”

Here’s your reply: “The usual stuff. Give me a chance to prioritize it. I wanna make sure I’m not misunderstanding it.” Again, this has the advantage of being true.

Translate it

Here comes the fun part. Guess what, you’re reading that for a third time. Except this time you’re going to pull out a notepad. You’re going to rewrite the e-mail. You’re going to take it apart bit by bit. And put it together the same way a doctor would set a broken bone. Patiently and professionally.

Divide that notebook page in half vertically. Title the left column “feedback”, title the right column “action”. The stuff on the right is going to be the basis of the reply you’re going to send them. Ready?

Let’s take a look at some sample things you might find in a feedback e-mail:

We’ve reviewed the stuff you posted on Monday and compiled our feedback.

Know what the most important word in that sentence is? That’s right — “We!” That’s a vague word. So write the original sentence in the left column. In the right column write “find out who’s included here”. You need to check that against your stakeholder list. If anyone’s missing, you may be getting their feedback at a later date. You don’t want that. So tell them you need all the feedback before you can move on. In fact, go ahead and send that e-mail now. You may have an answer before you finish this exercise. Better yet — call. The phone is your secret weapon. And don’t mention anything else. This is all about that list of stakeholders.

Let’s move on.

As discussed, finding a clear way to represent both make and model on product & series pages is essential. Maybe the make and model could appear in place of the related products on the sample product page?

The first sentence here is gold. It shows that they’re keeping the goal in mind and holding you to it. This is good. Treasure comments like this. The second sentence is the one that drives designers nuts. But it shouldn’t. It drives designers nuts because the client is telling them how to do something. (Ironically, the same designers will also go apeshit when the client “doesn’t tell me what they want.”) Here’s where you need to be empathetic. The client obviously doesn’t feel like the goal is being met, and is being nice enough to offer a suggestion, because they feel like it’s the right thing to do. Focus on the former, mull over the latter, and if it’s the right thing to do — great. Do it. If it’s not, then figure out what the right thing is. So, on the action side of your notepad, you write down. “Right idea? Let’s test.”

The author photos are too prominent.

Behold the greatest tool in a designer’s workshop: Asking why. Unless this was previously discussed, you have no idea why the client thinks the photos are too prominent. Go find out. On the right side of your notepad write “ask why.”

We’re still debating the handling of the related articles. I think it works. Maybe. Was also looking at how this other site does it. Not sure if it works for us. Not sure. Then again, I kinda like how we’re handling it.

This comment contains no actual information, request, or feedback. The client is just thinking out loud. Move on. You want to keep an eye on feedback like this though, because it may reveal a larger issue, such as internal disagreement, or maybe you didn’t do quite the selling job you think you did. But if you’re just seeing a few here and there it’s normal.

Bob in Marketing and Janice in Engineering disagree on how we’re handling the headers. Can you please show us two different ways so we can vote?

No you cannot. You get a hold of Bob and Janice, as well as the project lead, and you hear them out. You figure out what the disagreement is and you work carefully and methodically to build agreement with the stakeholders. That’s problem-solving. But no you’re not going to give them taste-tests. You’re not running a froyo shop.

We’re missing a few items of metadata: ISBN numbers, format, shipping size and weight.

That’s actionable. Fix it.

Can we see this with different fonts/colors/shapes/etc?

Why? What’s the actual issue with the fonts/colors/shapes/etc you used? You can’t just make a change without finding out why they’re requesting it. Otherwise, you’re back in the froyo shop. And jumping to these requests is what makes you an order-taker, rather than a designer. A designer solves problems. That statement didn’t contain a problem. But it appears that there might be a problem, go find out what it is.

Once we’re done these changes we’re excited to get it in front of the CEO/Board!

Did you know the CEO/Board were involved? Why are they only seeing it at the end? You’re screwed. Don’t show them something they didn’t have input into. They’ll hate that they weren’t consulted and can do more damage to finished work than work in progress.

Once you’ve reviewed the feedback and come up with how to handle each request, you’ll need to prioritize it. This is a fine time to call your team together and review it with them. Along with your plan of action. Because now you’ll look like you’ve got it under control. And that’s reassuring. And because they can help you prioritize things. They can also check your math.

E-mail the client

Time to e-mail the client back. Make it short. (Always make it short.) Thank them for the feedback. Tell them you’ve reviewed it with the team. Tell them all the things you’re going to change based on the feedback. They’ll be happy to see that. Then tell them that you’ve got questions. List the questions. Give them a deadline for answering them. Offer to jump on the phone to clarify any questions they might have.

And a very special type of feedback:

<This little detail is great.> <This little detail is great.> <This little detail is great.> <This little detail is great.> We’re concerned the tone isn’t quite there.

Christ on a corncob cross. I’ve actually gotten this format of feedback quite a number of times. I’ll admit it used to get my angry. It doesn’t anymore. Therapy and experience are a joy to behold. Remember how I told you to read the whole thing a couple of times before reacting? One was to calm down. The other is because people don’t necessarily prioritize their thoughts. Either that or they’re trying to load you up with good news before dropping the hammer. Your client is misguidedly being kind here. Focus on the kindness, not this misguided part. You got this.

First off, those compliments at the beginning are moot. Because no amount of treating the details is going to fix the problem. You’re going to need a serious conversation with the client, because that’s a big one.

Send them an e-mail. Here’s what it says: “Hey, thanks for being honest about the tone. Let’s jump on the phone and discuss that. We’ll leave everything else be until we reevaluate that. How’s Wednesday at three?”